If you watched highlight shows or read about the Ole Miss/South Carolina game from Thursday night, you heard many people term the outcome “an upset.” If you go by the poll rankings it was an upset, but if you actually use common sense, you’ll see that this was just a predictable outcome. What we had on Thursday was a couple of average SEC teams squaring off. What’s generally the difference in those games? Home field and usually nothing more than a touchdown or field goal. So when Ole Miss goes to South Carolina and loses by six points, why on Earth would that be considered an upset? It shouldn’t be other than the jacked up poll system.
In reality, the polls shouldn’t be determined until after a month of the season. After about four games people should be able to judge teams much better than they would prior to the season. What really goes into determining preseason polls anyway? How a team finished the previous year and tradition of the program? That doesn’t seem to be a logical way to determine how strong a team is in the current season. Even the Ole Miss players were relieved not to have such a high ranking anymore because they knew it hadn’t been earned.
Answer me this, why aren’t Auburn, Iowa, or UCLA in the so-called Top 25? Because they were not expected to do well prior to the year? It’s total b.s. and it sucks that preseason expectations impact rankings once the year actually begins. And the way Ole Miss’ offense looked last night, it will be surprising if they don’t lose four games this year.
