08-19-2013, 08:20 PM
The average finish was flawed. Just look at teams ranked #25. The "Average" was 23.7, but far more often than not the team finished unranked. It appeared the assumption was that the unranked teams were given a #26 value. So by my view the real "Average" would be much worse since most of those unranked teams would not have finished #26 (see USC).
If you factor in a more appropriate value for each unranked team it becomes pretty clear that there is a rather strong correlation between preseason and final rankings. (There are far more unranked teams deeper down the preseason list.)
FWIW - I did find it interesting that #2 was a better place to start than #1. I can only guess that the #1 team gets flooded with preseason hype that impacts prep, while the #2 team probably goes into August most focused likely believing they were unjustly slighted.
If you factor in a more appropriate value for each unranked team it becomes pretty clear that there is a rather strong correlation between preseason and final rankings. (There are far more unranked teams deeper down the preseason list.)
FWIW - I did find it interesting that #2 was a better place to start than #1. I can only guess that the #1 team gets flooded with preseason hype that impacts prep, while the #2 team probably goes into August most focused likely believing they were unjustly slighted.