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Preseason AP Poll - Printable Version

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Preseason AP Poll - washingtonismoney - 08-23-2015

#7 Oregon
#8 SC
#11 N.D.
#13 UCLA
#15 ASU
#21 Stanford
#22 Arizona

Re: Preseason AP Poll - amartinsu13 - 08-23-2015

http://collegefootball.ap.org/poll

Re: Preseason AP Poll - needle - 08-23-2015

Deleted.

I miscounted the number of Pac teams! Six Pac teams is the same as last year's pre-season poll.



Re: Preseason AP Poll - thunder_chik - 08-23-2015

Good on us if we play 5 top 25 teams on our schedule this year. 8)

Re: Preseason AP Poll - oldalum - 08-23-2015

(08-23-2015, 12:32 PM)thunder_chik link Wrote:Good on us if we play 5 top 25 teams on our schedule this year. 8)

That depends on how we play 'em!

Re: Preseason AP Poll - thunder_chik - 08-23-2015

(08-23-2015, 01:04 PM)oldalum link Wrote:[quote author=thunder_chik link=topic=12569.msg125360#msg125360 date=1440358343]
Good on us if we play 5 top 25 teams on our schedule this year. 8)

That depends on how we play 'em!
[/quote]

Shoulda said play and BEAT.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - OutsiderFan - 08-23-2015

My guess is Stanford is underrated because the football writers pay a lot of attention to recruiting rankings and they pretty much don't understand that Stanford basically has a handicap on each of its recruiting classes due to its very low player attrition rates and resulting smaller class sizes.

Moreover, nobody is expecting Stanford to field a team full of gifted athletes.  As Hulk said in another thread, this Stanford team has elite athletes at the skill positions and at LB that it hasn't had before, and the writers in other cities aren't expecting.

My list of elite level difference maker athletes on the Stanford roster who could play a lot this year:

Joey Alfieri, Peter Kalambayi, Solomon Thomas, Terrence Alexander, Christian McCaffrey, Austin Hooper, Dalton Schultz, Trent Irwin, and Bryce Love, possibly Sean Barton, and maybe even Bobby Okereke (better athlete than Stanford has historically been able to put on the field at LB).  These are guys who because of elite athleticism or physical ability, can make big individual plays.

Even Kodi Whitfield and Dallas Lloyd are better athletes than Stanford has usually had at Safety.  Michael Rector has difference-maker speed, as does Isiah Brandt-Simms, and Francis Owusu is no slouch as an athlete either.   

And there are guys like Devon Cajuste, Blake Martinez, Kevin Anderson, Kevin Palma, Noor Davis (when he comes back) and Ronnie Harris, Aziz Sittu, and Brennan Scarlett, who maybe aren't elite level athletes, but really good veteran players.

Throw in a 4th year starting QB in Kevin Hogan who is a pretty good athlete in his own right, plus a veteran OL, and this team is going to be better than the experts are predicting, IMO.







Re: Preseason AP Poll - socalstanfan1 - 08-23-2015

I would only add to OF's post about our under-rated level of talent, that Stanford STILL likely suffers from low expectations.  For roughly the last seven years, there has been one reason after another to explain Stanford's rise to a legitimate contender for the Pac-12 north crown.  First, it was the Jim Harbaugh effect; then all attributed to Andrew Luck, then David Shaw's teams are just riding the coattails of the Harbaugh/Luck era.  Last year when a bunch of players left for the NFL it was supposed to be the time when Stanford would be unmasked as an imposter.  And, sure enough, for much of the season, Stanford came up just short in key games.  But then, at the end of the season, with its biggest playmaker sidelined, Stanford ran off three impressive victories, including a thrashing of then-top 10 UCLA in Pasadena, and that whole narrative was thrown into doubt.  Is Stanford declining? Is it actually holding its own? Might it be (gasp) improving?

But wait, this year the whole defense has to be rebuilt.  Sure, nearly everyone is back from the offensive outburst at the end of the season, but, still, that defense...

And so here we are, a bit miffed at being ranked 21st, but really, 15 years ago we all would have been elated to start the season anywhere in the top-25.  And I think the ranking may reflect the division of opinion. More sports writers have learned not to write off Stanford entirely, but there remain lingering doubts as to how long this whole run will last. (Or, maybe it isn't just a "run" or "streak" of good play.  Maybe this is the new normal, where people realize that, like VSC, Bama, Oregon, and Ohio State, Stanford can be expected to field a super competitive program year in and year out.  But that reality takes some getting used to, for many in the sports journalism world.)

Re: Preseason AP Poll - winflop - 08-24-2015

I'm not miffed at all by Stanford being ranked 21st.  Sounds about right to me.  Replacing a LOT of starters leads to questions, especially on defense which has been the hallmark of this program over the last decade.

If the boys knock off the Toejams in week 3, they will quickly rise in the polls.  If they keep winning, they will keep rising.  And if they lose to a ranked team they may fall a little but shouldn't fall a lot.  Now, if they put up a stinker against an unranked team they will be punished hard.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - ChicagoCard - 08-24-2015

(08-23-2015, 11:16 PM)socalstanfan1 link Wrote:... then David Shaw's teams are just riding the coattails of the Harbaugh/Luck era.

This one definitely still persists.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - socalstanfan1 - 08-24-2015

For the record, I'm not bothered by being ranked #21.  As Winflop mentioned, we really are replacing a lot of starters the D.  I think what does happen though, is when Alabama or Ohio State or USC (when it is rolling) loses starters like we have this year, the assumption of pundits around the nation is that the team will simply replace them because their depth is so great.  So they will start the season ranked high which, particularly in the old BCS system, was critical to getting into the top bowl games.  We are still at the stage of proving that we can weather such large departures of players and keep winning. 

It takes time to get rid of an old set of assumptions, and even more time to replace them with a more positive set of assumptions.  So Shaw can legitimately play the "chip on our shoulder, we've been disrespected" card for a bit longer.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - terry - 08-24-2015

I think you could make a good argument that Stanford may be overrated in the polls. We finished last season unranked (we were on the "also receiving votes" list -- would have been AP #27, Coaches #30). We lost 9 starters from our defense, which was our elite unit. Should we really be ranked higher now than we were at the end of last year?

I think we're benefiting from a halo effect. We've established over the last 6 years that we're a good program. So we get the benefit of the doubt. There's an assumption that we will replace the departed players and stay on course. I hope that's right.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - JohnR34231 - 08-24-2015

I think there is an assumption that we will play the way we did in the last three games of the year (3-0 including a 21 point victory over a highly rated team), as opposed to the way we did in the first ten (5-5). Hopefully, that is a valid one.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - martyup - 08-24-2015

I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

Chris Childers said it??!!! - JohnR34231 - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 09:41 AM)martyup link Wrote:I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

OMG, it has to be true then.

Re: Chris Childers said it??!!! - martyup - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 09:50 AM)JPRI link Wrote:[quote author=martyup link=topic=12569.msg125408#msg125408 date=1440434500]
I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

OMG, it has to be true then.
[/quote]

Well, it does mean that at least one top tier college football pundit thinks we are underrated.  However, I prefer the underrated chip stays firmly on our team's shoulders.

And it is nice to know that someone at that level sees that level of potential in our team.  It makes me feel less delusional in my optimism.

Re: Chris Childers said it??!!! - BostonCard - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 10:56 AM)martyup link Wrote:[quote author=JPRI link=topic=12569.msg125410#msg125410 date=1440435031]
[quote author=martyup link=topic=12569.msg125408#msg125408 date=1440434500]
I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

OMG, it has to be true then.
[/quote]

Well, it does mean that at least one top tier college football pundit thinks we are underrated.  However, I prefer the underrated chip stays firmly on our team's shoulders.
[/quote]

It could also mean there is more uncertainty associated with our spot.  Roughly speaking a 9-4 record as a Pac-12 team ought to get us in the range of a #21 ranking (last year, Utah was ranked 21 with a final record of 9-4), and all the playoff teams wound up with 1 or fewer losses heading into the playoff.  There are two ways that someone could believe we are the most likely team to end up in the playoff.  The first assumes that our ranking is inaccurate (that we are a better team than we are given credit for).  The second is that our ranking is accurate but imprecise.  In other words, while a 9-4 record is our most likely outcome, the uncertainty associated with our ranking is such that the writer believes we could end up with a 12-1 ranking heading into the playoff decision, but could also wind up with a losing record and unranked.

I think the latter view is probably more likely.  As Terry pointed out, we finished last season unranked and lost a lot of player from our elite defense.  If our offense is not much better than last year, and our defense is worse, we could end up with a losing record.  On the other hand, if the last three games of the year are an indicator of what our offense will do this year (and with a reasonable expectation that it will continue to progress) and our defense is reasonably close to as good as it was last year, we could wind up with a 12-1 record by year's end.

Until we take the field in a couple competitive games, it will be hard to know for sure.

BC

Re: Preseason AP Poll - PrinceLightfoot - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 09:41 AM)martyup link Wrote:I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

Also on SiriusXM "The First Team" both host, Taylor Zarzour and Greg McElroy, agree that Stanford has the best chance to win the Pac12 North and the mostly likely non-top10 team to make the playoffs. They love the way the offense performed for the last three games of the season and that 4 of the 5 OL are returning along with the QB. The did question whether the secondary or the DL would reload, but gave Stanford the benefit of the doubt given they have reloaded on defense year after year.

They do no like Oregon because of new QB, new O linemen, and an unsure front seven. The do not think they will be beating anyone in the trenches having only one true stud on each side of the line.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - CTcard - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 11:36 AM)PrinceLightfoot link Wrote:[quote author=martyup link=topic=12569.msg125408#msg125408 date=1440434500]
I just heard Chris Childers on College Sports Coast to Coast (SiriusXM 84) predict that Stanford has the best chance of the teams ranked 15 to 25 in the AP poll to make the playoffs this season.  8)

Also on SiriusXM "The First Team" both host, Taylor Zarzour and Greg McElroy, agree that Stanford has the best chance to win the Pac12 North and the mostly likely non-top10 team to make the playoffs.
[/quote]

I heard the former but not the latter.

After Childers mentioned Stanford, Gino Torretta cuts in with "not Stanford". Childers asks "why not?". Torretta replies "I've seen Hogan play".
Neither seemed to understand that the Stanford defense is replacing most starters - a major question mark for the season. Apparently the second guys knew a little more.

Re: Preseason AP Poll - martyup - 08-24-2015

(08-24-2015, 12:01 PM)CTcard link Wrote:After Childers mentioned Stanford, Gino Torretta cuts in with "not Stanford". Childers asks "why not?". Torretta replies "I've seen Hogan play".

Yeah, I heard that too.  I thought that was sort of strange.  I wonder if he saw Hogan beat Mariota's team -- twice.  I wonder if he knows that Hogan is 11-6 vs. top 25 ranked teams.  I wonder if he saw Hogan win the Rose Bowl again WI.  I wonder if he knows that Hogan's father was dying of cancer last season and passed away in December.  I wonder if he watched Hogan bounce back from that nightmare in his last two games, destroying the highly touted UCLA defense and pummeling Maryland on the way to winning MVP of the Foster Farms Bowl.  I don't think Gino knows Kevin, or Jack.