Oregon ranked well above USC shows why college football polls are broken

You might have heard the news: USC is eight spots below Oregon in the latest US LBM Coaches Poll, following Week 1 in the 2024 college football season. Wait a minute. That doesn’t make any sense at all, right? No logical person could possibly rank Oregon above USC, let alone eight spots. Not after this weekend of football we just watched.

We wrote this in our instant story on the US LBM Coaches Poll:

“USC ought to be ranked well ahead of Oregon based on the caliber of the Trojans’ performance and the quality of the opponents each team faced. USC played LSU on a neutral field. Oregon played Idaho, an FCS program, at home. Both teams won close games. Neither game was decided before the fourth quarter. Oregon led by only three points early in the fourth quarter before finally getting a small sliver of breathing room. USC’s margin of victory against LSU — seven points — was nearly as large as Oregon’s margin of victory against Idaho. Yet, Oregon is eight spots above USC because Oregon was 20 spots ahead of USC in the preseason edition of the poll.”

We have to have a conversation about this and go into the art of properly ranking teams each week. This should not be a painful or difficult process, and yet we know it will be. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Let’s explain a few things about the USC Oregon coaches poll rankings and what they actually should be.

QUALITY OF WINS, QUALITY OF OPPONENTS

Let’s start here: Teams should be elevated for good wins and downgraded for either losses or bad wins. What we mean by a “bad win” is precisely what Oregon had on Saturday against Idaho: a close game at home versus a team it should have drilled by a very large margin, but didn’t.

Let’s refer to last year and late September/early October, after five games had been played. Buffaloes Wire recapped the post-Week 5 US LBM Coaches Poll for 2023:

“The new US LBM Coaches Poll dropped on Sunday and there are three Pac-12 teams in the top 10: No. 7 USC, No. 8 Washington and No. 9 Oregon. The top three overall teams stayed the exact same this week: No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Ohio State.

“Colorado did not receive a single vote. These results will look much different a week from now with a ton of notable matchups taking place in Week 6. LSU-Missouri, Oklahoma–Texas, Maryland-Ohio State, Washington State-UCLA, Alabama-Texas A&M and Notre Dame-Louisville are a few of the more notable big games.”

USC was unbeaten through Week 5 last season, but the Trojans had not beaten a really good team. They beat San Jose State, Nevada, Stanford, Arizona State, and Colorado. Only San Jose State (7-5, then losing its bowl game to finish 7-6) finished 2023 with a winning record. USC did not have a high-quality resume through five weeks. The Trojans did not blow out Arizona State or Colorado, either. They did not play good teams and did not play well. They did not deserve a No. 7 national ranking. Let’s make that clear. This is not an anti-Oregon column. This is a column about how polls should and shouldn’t operate.

RESULTS, NOT PREDICTIONS

Another core problem with polls: They easily become manifestations of what voters think will happen in the future, not what teams have done in the past tense. This is exactly the wrong way to rank teams. It should be entirely based on what teams have already achieved.

USC beat LSU. We can’t guarantee that LSU will be a very good team at season’s end, but the Tigers are obviously talented. That was a tough game against a perceived SEC title contender. If LSU goes 5-7 this season, we can downgrade the LSU win and thereby downgrade USC’s ranking. Right now, though, that’s as good a win as any in college football.

Oregon barely beat Idaho. That’s nowhere close to a quality win. It’s as simple as that. USC should be ranked ahead of Oregon, and yet the Trojans are eight spots behind. The college football poll ranking system is broken.

BETTING SHOULD NEVER BE A FACTOR IN POLL RANKINGS

When lobbying for Alabama to make the College Football Playoff, Nick Saban has cited betting lines — who would be favored — as a basis for selecting the Tide. Saban might be right about Bama being favored, but that kind of thing should never determine or influence rankings. Never.

Would Oregon be favored over USC on a neutral field if they played this week? Probably. That should not influence how we rank the Ducks and Trojans, or any other teams.

FANS GET UPSET — SO WHAT?

College football fans get really mad when you tell them their team shouldn’t be ranked, or that it should be ranked 20 spots lower. If you told an Oregon fan right now that the Ducks shouldn’t be ranked, that fan would tell you you’re crazy or that you don’t know ball.

The problem is that we are so used to seeing teams not get re-ranked in a fresh way each week. Fans shouldn’t get upset. They should appreciate the craft of ranking teams and understand the proper way for this process to unfold. Let’s talk about this more:

RANKINGS SHOULD NOT BE SET IN STONE

Here’s what fans just don’t understand about college football poll rankings: They shouldn’t be fixed in place, as though once they’re set at the start of the season, they should guide every subsequent ranking. No. It’s exactly the opposite. We can project the top 25 at the start of the season — you can do that if you want to — but as soon as actual games are played and actual results are logged, we should be constantly reworking our rankings based on the quality of each team’s results each week. Openness and fluidity, not a fixed, locked-in method, should govern this process.

BEING RANKED LOWER IS NOT A PENALTY, JUST AN EVALUATION

If we can realize and understand that college football rankings should not be set in stone, and that this should be a fluid weekly process, it’s not a penalty to be unranked or moved down 20 spots in the rankings. It’s merely an evaluation of that particular week. Losing a game is a penalty. That costs teams in conference races and in the College Football Playoff chase. If you win your games but either don’t look good doing so or are playing cupcake opponents, you shouldn’t be ranked, but you aren’t paying a price. As soon as the schedule gets tougher, a team which then wins its biggest games of the season will naturally and inevitably rise in the rankings. Everything will sort itself out.

Oregon beat Idaho by 10, a terrible performance. That matters only to the extent that Oregon needs to play better in the future. If Oregon does play better and it wins its big games, such as Ohio State in October, we’re not going to talk about the Idaho game at the end of the season. It won’t matter. Oregon, if it goes 12-0 against this 2024 schedule, will probably be No. 1 at the end of the year, and no worse than No. 2. Saying that Oregon should be ranked below USC isn’t a punishment; it’s merely a logical response to seeing Oregon play poorly against a cupcake, while USC played well and beat LSU. That’s all. It’s not an agenda. It’s just observing what happened and arriving at a natural conclusion flowing from the observations.

USC TROJANS RANKING

If USC struggles to beat Utah State — which is not a good team — the same way Oregon struggled to beat Idaho, the Trojans would deserve to fall several spots in next week’s rankings. Again, this is not an anti-Oregon piece; it’s an explainer on how to do rankings properly.

OREGON VERSUS BOISE STATE

Oregon plays Boise State in Week 2. Boise State gave up a ton of points to Clay Helton’s Georgia Southern team in Week 1. If Oregon can’t light up Boise State for at least 40 points and win the game decisively, the Ducks would not deserve to rise in next week’s rankings. Oregon needs to pound Boise State in a clear-cut blowout to earn consideration for a rankings rise next week. Let’s get that point on the record.

WHERE SHOULD OREGON BE RANKED?

Oregon should be ranked below USC for starters. Let’s get that point clear. In terms of an exact numerical ranking, we don’t know, but let’s put it this way: Did Oregon have one of the 25 best wins in Week 1? Obviously, in the first game of the season, one-game comparisons are limited. Yet, if we are in the business of ranking teams based on each week, a one-game comparison is exactly how we should rank teams after Week 1. If you think Oregon beating Idaho by only 10 at home is a top-25 win for any college football team in the country, we don’t think you’re being a serious, realistic, honest college football analyst.

Let’s put it that way.

WHERE SHOULD USC BE RANKED?

If you think USC’s win over LSU on a netural field was one of the five best wins for any college football team in Week 1, you should rank USC in the top five. It’s as simple as that. Week 2 results can and probably should change where we rank teams. Week 3 results will do the same. After Week 1, though, we’re comparing one game for every team. USC should rate very favorably in that one-game comparison across the whole college football landscape. This is how rankings should work each week.

We hope this was an educational process for you, and we hope you’ll share this process with other people you enjoy engaging in conversations about college football.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Oregon ranked well above USC shows why college football polls are broken