Re: New Poll Predictions for 1/25
Earlier this month I said polls were all love/hate--and the following sort of explains how perplexed I can get by them--when I read the predictions. I am not smart enough to make such precise predictions but have thought about how the results are arrived at.
This weekend while watching a game in which one team was really controlling and dominating the play, I asked myself, "
Does the opposing coach actually pause for a moment to admire an opponent that clearly has much more talent, is better prepared, or just clicking that night or does that coach focus on mixing, matching and maxing his resources to see if he can coach the situation around for his team'?"
And come Monday AM when it is time to fill out the poll does that losing recall with admiration and respect the 9 to 0 beating he might have suffered two nights before?
Or does he take his revenge by tanking the team that beat him on his weekly poll questionnaire.
To be honest, had I been the coach of that Concordia (WI) team few years back ,who had been beaten and humiliated by Adrian with 36 goals in two consecutive games, I am not sure Adrian would have gotten my vote.
I suppose it depends on the coach. As I have said before polls are all love/hate--great on the way up and miserable on the way down. Now I am just spit balling here but I wonder do coaches asked to rank other teams (they may or may not have seen) spend as much time on them as we do debating them or is he spending time getting ready for the next game. The answer is obvious.
I am pondering all this (that is what you do on Monday AMs when you retire--ponder the fate of the universe and hockey polls) as I look at so many poll predictions.
NU Prof's more scientific computer approach, for example, has Middlebury going down to #16--while the four human/fan predictions so far have the Panthers at worse no further down than #14. None is right or wrong but coach's polls must be done so quickly that I question their value--especially if a coach has "issues" with a school he has ranked purposely low or artificially high because of the number of Championship rings they may have once won. Fan predictions seem to be more accurate than coaches because, face it, fans have less to do hence they really study the numbers--but also recognize they are fans with a bias and an ax to grind.
I guess I like NU Prof's very strict scientific computer approach best only because all the emotion is tossed out and the rankings are based entirely on statistics. Problem is NU Prof didn't move MY team up this week--doesn't his computer know how great they are? .
But like I said, "love/hate polls" that is all they are.
