(10-21-2019 02:21 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(10-21-2019 02:14 PM)EvanJ Wrote:  

(10-21-2019 01:55 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(10-21-2019 01:53 PM)EvanJ Wrote:  The NCAA has weekly polls available going back to 1999, and in that time Clemson became the first AP Preseason Number 1 to fall to fourth or worse while undefeated.

oh well. Totally deserved....

And I would say it's a by-product of the CFP. Voters know that the CFP committee doesn't just say a team was #1 start of season so they stay there thru the season. See Florida St, 2014 as a prime example.

I don't know if poll voters care about if and how they impact the BCS or CFP. I'm a Florida State fan, and they had opposite undefeated regular seasons with giant margins in 2013 and comebacks in 2014. We'll never know, but I'm not confident they would have remained Number 1 in the regular season if it was still a BCS year. In their 13 games through the ACC Championship Game, 7 including the last 4 were decided by 6 points or fewer, and a minute before halftime at Louisville they trailed 21-0 before winning 42-31. They took the lead with 3:46 left, which is about 1/16th of the game. They had a near-equal split of 4 games they never trailed, 5 games with a biggest deficit of 1 possession, and 4 games with a biggest deficit of more than 1 possession. That's before the Semifinal loss to Oregon.

(10-21-2019 02:03 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  The drop in ranking is deserved. Other teams have gone undefeated and been far more impressive than Clemson and against stiffer competition. Pre-season #1 isn’t something a school is entitled to keep.

Their only wins by fewer than 31 are 21-20 at North Carolina and 24-10 hosting Texas A&M.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/st...-no-3-poll says:

"The last preseason No. 1 to drop as far or farther without a loss or tie was Oklahoma in 1977. The Sooners slipped from first to fifth after opening the season with a 25-23 victory over Vanderbilt."

"One has to go all the way back to 1971 to find a similar drop to Clemson's for a preseason No. 1. Notre Dame started that season top ranked and won its first five games, slipping to No. 7 while doing so."

Even when they won big so far, they've not looked great. What was the score vs Louisville mid 3rd quarter 17-3? That's not good.

Yet the offense is almost statistically better than the 2018 offense at the same point while the defense, despite losing five off the DL two deep, is statistically better than last year's.

The thing is the only purpose of the AP poll at this point is evidently to provide Dabo Swinney with material to motivate the team with. There's nobody ahead of us in the AP poll that we wouldn't beat.