Being Overrated is Underrated

In case you missed it, Nebraska is the 5th most overrated team of the past 10 years. What does that mean? Not a whole hell of a lot but let's talk about it anyway.

ESPN went to the trouble of conducting a survey that looked at the last 10 years of preseason poll rankings versus final AP poll rankings when they simply could've gone here and not had to do anything, but that's not really the point. The point is, in the most literal sense, I guess this method can determine whether or not a team was over or underrated. Technically, because Miami started the 2002 season as the AP #1 and finished as the #2 they were overrated. Failures.

Or maybe the Hurricanes didn't fail. Just maybe it was the pollsters fault. Is it possible that Miami was, perhaps, incorrectly rated to start? Who knows? This whole process deals in absolutes and if I were more intelligent I would know whether or not the "survey" was wrecked by some sort of logical fallacy or just sheer stupidity. But, bear with me know, that's still not my point. While we're riding the roller coasters and eating corn dogs here in Hypotheticaland, let's take a day and head over to What If World (I think it's like a Disney-Universal package deal sort of thing):

Suddenly you're flush with cash and you decide to do something no great men or women do today--found a university. Now if you're like me you would give this school the most selective admissions requirements in the world because it doesn't matter if what you're teaching is any good if people can't get in more people will want to get in. That's step one, but step two would be creating a top notch football program at Your Last Name U. Ten years later, the program is up and running. Would you rather have your program mentioned alongside:

Group A: FSU, Tennessee, Washington, Miami (Not OH), Ohio State, Nebraska, Florida Michigan, Texas, Clemson.

OR

Group B: Washington St, Boise St, Oregon, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Louisville, TCU, Boston College, Iowa, Maryland.

If you're on the fence, Group A has eight national titles and Group B has zero and here's where the totally obvious reveal comes in: Group A is comprised of the 10 most overrated teams of the past 10 years!!

Can you believe it? When you consistently start the season in the Top 5 there's not a lot of room to move up, but there's a ton of room to move down. Basically what this survey reveals is which programs are respected on a national level and which ones aren't.

If you follow college football at all you know that the one thing fans want is RESPECT. They want it from you, they want it from message board trolls and, most of all, they want it from the national media. It's more effective, and possibly more important, than that wacky way we determine the national title.

So what we know now is that teams in the underrated group probably have a legitimate gripe, but we also know that teams in the overrated group are right where they want to be. My only hope for the next 10 years is for Nebraska to overtake Florida State as the most overrated team in the country because that will mean Nebraska is back to being just another overvalued team...at the top of the polls.

(Ed. The graphical accompaniment to this post in no way implies that Elvis was overrated. Rather, crappy art is overrated. Also, as this is a blog it is entirely obvious that I am the sole author of this work and operating without editorial assistance but I like parenthetical insertions from editors. This is a decision I will continue to make.)