Big 12 football – poll position – a look at the AP through the season
I was curious on how the Associated Press rankings of the Big 12 conference for the 2009 football season reflected on the conference as a whole. So, what does every good ‘curious person’ do? I made a nifty graph of the results. And wow. It makes me question the Big 12′s performance. It also has me questioning the voters in the AP polls.
If you compare preseason to post, the only team that saw any type of consistency was Texas – starting and ending as the #2 team in the land. But after that, you see quite the mess with teams like Oklahoma dropping like a rock, Kansas starting a steady climb and then disappearing and Oklahoma State all over the messy map.
The team that surprises me the most in this exercise is Nebraska. The Cornhuskers started the season near the bottom of the AP Poll at 24 and then slid up a few spots to be ranked as high as #15 in Week 7 on October 11th. A loss to Texas Tech (an eventual bowl winner) knocked Nebraska out of the polls and kept them out until November 29th after their fifth consecutive win.
Over a month of wins over the likes of Baylor, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State and Colorado didn’t sway the voters until the Huskers beat the Buffs. Neither did national publicity for Ndamukong Suh, winner of a cabinet full of postseason trophies.
A last-second loss to Texas in the Big 12 Championship game and a dominating, shut-out performance in the Holiday Bowl landed Nebraska at #14 in the postseason polls - a place I argue they should have been for the majority of the year.
Yes, they had a suspect offense. But, they didn’t need offense to almost beat Texas and to romp on Pac 10 opponent Arizona. I’m glad to see Nebraska get some deserving credit in the final polls, but wish their D – and their heart -could have been recognized earlier in the year.
One Comment on “Big 12 football – poll position – a look at the AP through the season”
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I couldn’t agree with you more about Nebraska getting the hose. I think they could have beaten just about every team in the top 20 with the exception of Alabama and Florida. The AP voters are a bunch of homers needing to be a little less biased. I can win championships in D league softball but when I play B or C league, thats a different story. The voters need to consider who plays who…