No. 1? No. Thanks. Wait...

Number One Finishes and the AP Poll

The Associated Press has been providing a college football poll since 1936, including pre-season polls since 1950. Similar to the infamous Sports Illustrated jinx, many college football fans sense that a pre-season #1 ranking, of which the AP Poll is the standard-bearer, is the proverbial kiss of death.

In looking at the numbers over past years, this is not quite the case. In the 55 years since the AP has been publishing a preseason poll, a team has run the table a surprising 11 times. You do the math. It happened as recently as 2004 (USC), and twice in the past seven seasons (Florida State, 1999).

The reliability of the AP Poll to predict season-ending finishes started strong right out of the chutes, with teams running the table for three consecutive years in 1951-53. Meanwhile, Oklahoma leads the way with four wire-to-wire finishes, including consecutive runs in 1974 and 1975 under bootlegger's boy, Barry Switzer. Florida State enjoyed some measure of similar success in the 1990s, albeit with a bit more controversy involving their placement in the final polls.

With Notre Dame returning arguably its strongest team in recent memory, much banter has been thrown out regarding the possibility of them opening the 2006 season in the AP pole position. Many of the other would-be contenders--such as USC, Texas, Ohio State and Penn State-- will suffer significant losses on one or both sides of the ball, though they will be loaded nonetheless.

ND has started a season five times as the AP #1, the last time being in 1971. Only once--1953--did they finish the season as national champions, a title they shared with Maryland, with the Terps actually garnering the AP #1 slot while ND finished at #2. 1950 was one of the more forgettable efforts for the Irish, as Frank Leahy's squad went 4-4-1 and finished out of the final AP Top 25.

Having been a pre-season #1 five times since the AP initiated the practice, similarly ND has won five national championships in that same span, with 1953 being the only overlap year. Of the four other post-1950 titles, three times ND was pre-season top 10, while in 1988 they began the campaign at #13.

So what do we make of the pre-season rankings? On the one hand, starting the season with a target on their back has not served the Irish very well; even the one year they did finish as national champions (1953), there was not an undisputed consensus. On the other hand, the Irish rarely have been able to sneak up on anyone most years; four of their five most recent titles came in years with a pre-season top 10 billing.

Lastly, here's the final AP Top 10 for 2005 and teams' correlating pre-season rankings. Notice a common thread amongst a significant handful of those teams?

Yet another case of hard-working athletes not getting the respect they deserve. No respect, indeed.