Quote:
Originally Posted by Anupam Goli
You've just described what I hate the most about the great sport of college football: pre-season rankings. In the world of college football, media outlets try to assign rankings before the season starts to generate hype, the media $$$, and show their perceptions of which teams are strong. Most of the times, the end of year rankings are completely different from the preseason rankings.
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AP Poll Preseason top 5 teams:
Florida State
Alabama
Oregon
Oklahoma
Ohio State
AP Poll Week 16 top 5 teams:
Alabama
Florida State
Oregon
Baylor
Ohio State
So the AP Poll went from Oklahoma being #4 to unranked, but other than that, the preseason polls seemed to do a pretty decent job. Four of the preseason top five were still in the top five at the end.
So sure, you can't account for every factor (like student, mentor and sponsor loss), but preseason predictions can still do a fairly decent job. Good teams tend to be good from year to year. What are the chances that every team at a regional will be worse than the year before? Pretty slim. Some teams will get worse, but others will get better.
The Waterloo regional will be one of the more competitive ones next year. Only two of the teams attending were not in eliminations at any event last year.
EDIT: I decided to expand on the method of ranking events by % of teams in elims at their first event the previous year. It is slated more to areas with smaller event sizes the previous year (like PNW). This probably makes it a poor indicator of regional competitiveness. However, it still gives insights, especially within areas of similar event sizes. For example, Hatboro is ranked much higher than other MAR districts.
Here are the results:
Code:
PNWMt.Vernon 80.65%
PNWAuburnMountainview 78.13%
PNWWilsonville 71.88%
PNWAuburn 68.75%
PNWWestValley 68.00%
Waterloo 67.86%
MARHatboro-Horsham 66.67%
NEPineTree 66.67%
PNWPhilomathPeak 66.67%
MARMt.Olive 65.79%
Hawaii 65.71%
PNWOregonCity 65.63%
PNWCentralWashingtonUniversity 65.63%
MIHowell 64.86%
NewYorkTechValley 64.71%
NEPioneerValley 64.52%
PNWGlacierPeak 63.64%
MIWestMichigan 62.50%
PNWShorewood 62.50%
MIWaterford 61.54%
NENortheastern 60.00%
CentralValley 59.46%
NorthBay 59.46%
InlandEmpire 58.33%
NEWaterbury 57.58%
ArizonaEast 57.50%
ArkansasRockCity 56.90%
TorontoEast 56.52%
MIWoodhaven 56.25%
NEUMass-Dartmouth 56.00%
CentralIllinois 55.26%
MARBridgewater-Raritan 55.26%
Ventura 55.17%
NEUNH 55.00%
TorontoCentral 54.76%
MARNorthBrunswick 54.55%
Utah 53.85%
INPerryMeridian 52.78%
NERhodeIsland 52.78%
MICenterline 52.50%
Pittsburgh 52.00%
MexicoCity 51.22%
QueenCity 51.02%
NEGraniteState 50.00%
MARSpringsideChestnutHill 50.00%
MILivonia 50.00%
NEHartford 50.00%
WindsorEssexGreatLakes 50.00%
ArizonaWest 50.00%
MIBedford 50.00%
SouthFlorida 49.06%
SiliconValley 49.06%
WesternCanada 48.39%
MITraverseCity 47.50%
MITroy 47.22%
INPurdue 46.15%
MIKentwood 45.45%
LosAngeles 45.45%
HubCity 45.45%
MARUpperDarby 44.12%
Wisconsin 43.86%
MIEscanaba 43.33%
MARSeneca 43.24%
Buckeye 43.10%
GeorgiaSouthernClassic 42.86%
Israel 42.86%
St.Louis 42.86%
Colorado 41.67%
Chesapeake 41.38%
LasVegas 41.30%
Minnesota10000Lakes 41.27%
SBPLILongIsland 41.18%
FingerLakes 40.54%
Montreal 40.43%
MISouthfield 40.00%
NEReading 40.00%
INKokomo 40.00%
MISt.Joseph 40.00%
GreaterDC 40.00%
MIGreatLakesBayRegion 37.50%
Oklahoma 37.29%
MinnesotaNorthStar 36.67%
LakeSuperior 36.51%
Palmetto 36.36%
LoneStar 36.00%
Dallas 35.42%
MIKetteringUniversity 35.00%
SanDiego 35.00%
KansasCity 34.62%
Midwest 34.00%
NorthernLights 33.33%
Bayou 32.73%
Alamo 32.26%
MILansing 32.26%
Virginia 31.75%
MIStandish 31.25%
Orlando 31.25%
SmokyMountains 30.77%
Peachtree 30.30%
MIGullLake 30.00%
Sacramento 29.55%
NorthCarolina 29.09%
NewYorkCity 25.76%
Australia 15.38%