Like most everything else, sadly, in the sports media world, the college football weekly polls have been worthless for years, playing favorites to “readers” in order to maintain engagement and drive revenue. We still remember how the “Coaches Poll” was manipulated in the final week of the 2004 regular season to get Texas into the Rose Bowl instead of California—that was 20 years ago, and what has changed since then?

Not much; it’s really just gotten worse, that’s all.

We used to care enough to analyze the polls, but we don’t waste our time on such things anymore, that’s for sure. Yet picking on the poster children for this problem, we look at Mississippi being ranked fifth right now, despite playing the 118th-ranked schedule so far, and Missouri ranking sixth with the 73rd-toughest SOS, currently. Any astute reader will understand what is going on, of course, thanks to recent history data.

Ole Miss routinely has been ranked higher by the polls than by the computers: last year, the Rebels finished 11th in the polls and 16th in the computer rankings, and in 2021, Mississippi finished 8th in the polls and 16th again by the sabermetric brains. The season in between? The school was ranked 7th in the preseason and ended up unranked with a No. 28 SRS spot. Every year it’s the same story with the sorry Southern school.

As for Missouri? The school had its first winning season last year since 2018, and it was the first time the school had won 10-plus games in a season since 2014. The odds of the Tigers being able to replicate that performance for a second year in a row is highly unlikely. Ranking on perceived “potential” makes these polls even more worthless. By December, of course, it will all sort itself out on the field of the play, right?

So, remember that: these polls are designed to give the mediots something to talk about and tidbits for the “fans” to fight over when there’s such a small sample size of game data to work with overall. And for the first time ever, major college football will have a real tournament to decide its “champion”—although plenty of overrated teams will make it into the field of 12 competitors. We expect that, just like in basketball. Shrug.

Just remember, though: the wild-card spots in the tournament will be filled by teams that the “committee” expects to draw TV viewers … not by the best teams, necessarily. And those fringe teams probably won’t make it past their first game(s), and what we will end up with in the end is the teams that spend the most money on their rosters, probably—just like in MLB, for example. That’s where the sport is headed, sadly.

Keeping the polls is some nod to tradition that only the most shallow of fans will fall for still, so do yourself a favor and study the sabermetric rankings systems; those will tell you which teams are the real deal—and which ones are propped up for profiteering reasons. Always make yourself wiser than the mediots, and then you can spread the facts to those who just blindly watch the TV and repeat things they see there as fact.