Updates on Spring Football, and preseason polls

First, I'm currently working on this year's version of the "unbiased preseason poll" for college football. The formula was simple, but it turned out to be relatively helpful in 2009 for determining which teams where over or under rated. Comparing it to the actual preseason AP and USA Today polls, it accurately predicted that:

-Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State, LSU, California, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Kansas were overrated teams.

-Oregon, TCU, Iowa, Texas Tech, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati were underrated.

This was actually a huge success, because Iowa and TCU, teams that were ranked 17 and 22 in the AP preseason poll, actually ended up in the top 10 (both in BCS games). Texas Tech, Pitt, and Cincinnati were all unranked in the preseason AP and Coaches' polls, but all ended up in the top 25, with Cincinnati finishing as the #8 team. How did the voters miss by so much on these teams? The "unbiased poll" actually recognized them when the voters didn't.

But like I said before, the formula I used was very simple, based only on last season's final rankings and the returning starters for each team. So far with the same formula, this year's unbiased poll places Boise State at #1, Florida still at #3, and Alabama at #6. It isn't looking nearly as credible as last season's, but who knows, we could be surprised and see the BSU Broncos holding a crystal football at the end of next season (I wouldn't count on it). Still, I'm working on revamping the poll formula, adding different weighted values to the importance of players lost from each team, and maybe even finding a way to consider strength of schedule. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. But I do still plan on finishing the poll with last year's formula, no matter how wacky it ends up.

In other news, spring football begins soon, and it clearly can't come soon enough.

Georgia's spring practice is set to begin on March 4, and the G-Day game is scheduled for April 10 (yes, the same weekend as the Masters).

I've seen people questioning whether the game would be on ESPN again this year, and although I doubt it seriously, I'm not sure. It seems possible that with ESPN's deal with the SEC, more and more SEC spring games could be featured on ESPN networks (if not on ESPN or ESPN2, maybe the SEC Network).

It seems that ESPN has already scheduled to televise LSU's spring game, and North Carolina's, but I'm having trouble finding any official sources that can confirm that. But the link above is a very trustworthy (and a must-have) source for any college football fan, especially during the season.