Oklahoma, Big 12 and AP Poll

Walking Around The AP Poll

We’re fans of resume voting here at Three’s A Pattern. We tend to not pay a lot of attention returning starters, hunches or tradition when ranking teams within a college football season. Simply who have you played, who have you beat and who have you lost to. So while perusing the latest AP Poll, it’s hard not to notice that the biggest drop for a ranked team was Oklahoma:

They dropped 11 spots from #8 to #19. That sounds like a large drop, but frankly, to us, it’s not enough. Based on this season, it’s difficult to see why they’re ranked at all. Take a look at Oklahomas record thus far:

Wins: Tulsa(H), Idaho State(H)

Losses: BYU(N), Miami(R)

Not a very impressive resume. Certainly not one strong enough to overcome a 2-2 record. Oklahoma fans will point out that the two losses are by one point each to ranked opponents and that Heisman winner Sam Bradford was injured for most of the year. However, their only wins are at home, over a mid-major program and a 1-AA team. They have played a single team from a BCS conference and lost to them in their only road game of the year. The other loss was to a quality BYU team at a neutral site.  It’s tough to justify a high ranking simply on the strength of who you lost to. Juxtapose this with Houston dropping from #12 to unranked, despite having a road win vs. Oklahoma State and a home win vs. Texas Tech.

Mediocrity Loves Company

However, Oklahoma isn’t the only suspect Big 12 team in the back half of the poll. Let’s take a look at the the teams ranked below Oklahoma (BCS teams in bold):

Two things jump out at me from the above:

1. Not only does every team have a better record than Oklahoma, two are undefeated. The two undefeated teams have a combined 2 road wins and 1 neutral site win over another BCS team. This also doesn’t mention 5-0 Wisconsin or 4-1 Stanford, which can each claim a pair of wins over BCS opponents, but are unranked. There’s also 3-1 Notre Dame, which has 3 wins over BCS opponents.
2. Oklahoma is not the only team getting an unusually large amount of AP love. Eagle eyed readers will note that #21 Nebraska has a resume similar to Oklahoma, with no road wins and no wins over BCS teams. Just like Oklahoma, it’s a little difficult to see how they’re ranked as high as they are, given their resume. Out of 6 ranked Big 12 teams, they’re the only two teams without a win vs. a BCS conference team.

The Hypeman Cometh

With 6 ranked teams in the top 25, the hype machine for the Big 12 is already starting to build. However, in addition to Oklahoma and Nebraska, the rest of the ranked Big 12 teams, with two exceptions, have feasted on a slate of cream puffs & home games. Except for Oklahoma State over Georgia(H) & Texas over Wyoming(R), it’s hard not to see a pattern of home wins over cream puffs or conference opponents. While a combined record of 20-4 for the ranked teams looks impressive, broken down it loses it’s luster. The ranked Big 12 teams are basically .500 away from home:

Conclusion

As Mergz from Saurian Sagacity foretold , the Big 12 has built a early season rep as one of the two top conferences in the country. They’ve done this, primarily, by coasting through easy home games. Once conference play begins and they start knocking each other off, they’re rankings will remain artificially inflated. In an ideal world, the voters will follow the chain of logic to really look into a teams resume & performance based on their wins, not just ‘quality losses’. We don’t have a lot of faith in that. Instead, for this week, we’ll suggest that if voters want to only look at ‘quality losses’, then they should look at Norther Iowa, who only has a single loss to undefeated and 5-0 Iowa.