Back in the so-called good ole days of college football, we didn’t have a playoff. In fact, even before the BCS era, National Champions were picked by a group of people.
While that may seem silly, back then it was completely normal. Prior to 1998, national champions were determined by the Associated Press. Yes, that’s right AP voters picked the national champion each year.
Today, that seems absolutely absurd. Thanks to the playoff rankings, the AP poll is about as useful as a poopy flavored lollipop (RIP Patches O’Houlihan).
I do my best to not pay attention to the poll since it doesn’t mean much. But sometimes, I can’t help myself seeing where the voters rank teams. For every smart voter, there are five dumb ones and that may be putting it lightly.
Haley Sawyer Goes Viral
Take for example, Haley Sawyer from the Southern California News Group. Haley moved Florida up two spots in her rankings from the previous week after the Gators lost to South Florida last Saturday. And despite beating two Top 25 teams, South Florida was nowhere to be found in her Top 25.
When asked about her top 25, Haley was maybe a little too honest. “I don’t want to go too much into my process or logic.” Sawyer said on a Zoom call for the USCHoops.com podcast this week. “It’s really fun but it doesn’t probably matter in the end.”
First off, did she even bother to watch any game outside of USC? Did she even check the scores from the weekend? Because even at the very least if you checked the scores, then there would be no logical reason to move Florida up after a loss to an unranked team. So that right there tells me that she doesn’t even look at all.
I understand that it may be difficult to throw a Top 25 out there each and every week, but if you aren’t at least willing to try, then why even accept the responsibility in the first place? You know how many other people out there that would gladly take her spot?
There are too many people in this world that have a voice in college football that could care less about the sport. And Haley is just one of many. It’s one thing to say I made a mistake and it’s another thing to say what I do doesn’t matter. If that’s her take, then she probably doesn’t need to be ranking teams every week. And the sad part is that she may not even be the worst AP voter out there.
