Connor Mcilhinney0:00 I want to talk about the college football AP poll.0:02 So there's been a little bit of controversy within it recently, specifically with one of the reporters who gets a vote, Haley Sawyer.0:09 She made a video kind of posting saying that like the votes don't really matter and it's all for fun and the better teams will win regardless, and the better teams uh will go to the playoffs and they'll make their money.0:20 But there's a lot of economic controversies or decisions that are decided based on how high teams are within this poll.0:27 Like how where college game day is, that provides a lot of financial incentives to schools who make it, and that's largely decided on because of the AP poll.0:36 So I think voters that really don't take the time to watch the game are doing a huge disservice to programs that are are really on the rise and a huge favor to college teams who who are where they are because of their name brand and their football team's talent does not represent them at all.0:53 I think uh a great example of this is Penn State, um, how they've been rated in the top five of the AP poll um and then they got destroyed by UCLA, a team that was 0-4, um, and really fraud checked.1:07 So I think they need to do a much better job on vetting AP voters, and AP voters need to do a much better job really watching the games um and putting time into their votes.
Casey Comerford0:00 Yeah, Connor, I just wanted to speak a little bit to what you were saying.0:03 Um, because I've had some thoughts about it recently as well.0:06 And I'm also seeing how what other people believe.0:09 And you kind of mentioned how, yeah, obviously they're not watching every game, so it's kind of tough for them to rank them.0:13 And at the end of the day, especially early in the season, a lot of these rankings just come down to name value, um, brand value of these schools, like team, like you mentioned Penn State, but obviously um schools who have historically had success in the past when it comes to football, or just big schools who you know people recognize more or just are more in you know incentivized to believe are good because of previous success.0:38 Um, and it is actually pretty important.0:41 Like obviously, in the grand scheme of things, it may not impact, you know, where a team's ranked in AP poll week four may not actually impact where the committee decides to rank them for the playoffs.0:52 I'm not saying that's the main issue, which maybe it could be, but you bring up financial incentives, um and yeah, like schools being ranked low because maybe they haven't had success in the past.1:02 I think of teams like Indiana who have been pretty poor over the last you know decade or plus more in football.1:10 So obviously maybe people are less inclined to fully buy in or believe in their success now.1:16 Um were ranked much lower than other teams who had a high name brand.1:21 Um I'm not saying Alabama's bad, but let's just say a team like Alabama has had tons of success in the past would maybe get ranked higher.1:28 Um this impacts, you know, future recruiting as well.1:32 I mean, you think obviously, you know, the high star high star players, you know, important players to get recruited to play in the future are gonna want to go to you know schools who are ranked high.1:43 Um, and that might just continue the cycle of feeding into these one programs, even though programs who have had success, good coaching may not even get the you know the resources, the financial resources, or you know, even the looks um from these kids based off of these rankings.1:58 And I do think there should be some level of there should be some regulations to become an AP AP um voter.2:05 I think you should have to watch tape on multiple teams, especially teams that are even close to the top 25, maybe the top 50, um, because that's where it really comes down to.2:14 Sometimes teams are 4-0, and people talk about their resume compared to teams who may have one or two losses who've lost to good teams, but then the good teams come down to the A-P polls ranking, and like a good team could be Penn State and the A-P polls or the AP voters' minds.2:30 Um, but that's because of their name value.2:33 So it's kind of this cycle, and uh I do think it is an issue within the current ranking system of college football.