The Silly Business of Football Predictions

Those preseason all-conference and all-America teams? Best and Worst lists? They're bunk. Just filler until the real action begins. There's no science behind them and they're fleeting. If you're looking for facts to file away in your brain and call up when the time comes, you're just as well served with an Unusual Names Team (no doubt headed by Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska) or an All-Twitter Team (which would include Missouri's Sean Weatherspoon and Texas' Sherrod Harris.

Sure, the media wants to spotlight players and teams to watch for the upcoming season. But rather than resorting to reputation-based selections and good ol' guessing, how about an insightful look at the people involved? Football, especially on TV, tends to dehumanize players beneath their helmets and pads. Fans are craving to know what their favorite players are like away from the field.

It also wouldn't hurt if the media members involved in the preseason selections went about it with a little more self-deprecation and humor. "Half of my picks are wrong, I just don't know which half!"

Don't just take it from me, check out the June issue of Texas Monthly, where legendary sports writer Gary Cartwright turned both barrels on the list-and-prediction bunch, wounding Statesman columnists Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls in the process:

Can we even compare [Blackie] Sherrod with the jokers turning out pap nowadays, scribblers like [Cedric] Golden or his Statesman compadre Kirk Bohls? I’d thought Bohls was the most boring columnist I’d ever read until Golden came aboard. Golden is one of those hapless press boxers who think lists of bests and worsts is material that engages the intellect. Bohls’ solution for every problem is to fire the coach. What both of them really like to do—because it’s easy and gives the paper a chance to blow its own horn—is make predictions. Sports predictions are the last refuge of dimwits.

Ouch. If you're more swayed by hard numbers than convincing prose, let's look at last year's preseason All-Big 12 team (chosen by the media), as compared to the 2008 All-Big 12 team chosen after the season.

• Offensive Player of the Year -- Preseason: Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel. Postseason: Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford
• Defensive Player of the Year -- Preseason: Oklahoma's Auston English. Postseason: Texas' Brian Orakpo.
• Newcomer of the Year: Colorado running back Darrell Scott. There were four newcomer/freshman of the year awards after the season, none of them went to Scott.

Digging even deeper, there were 14 spots on the preseason All-Big 12 offense and 16 on the postseason all-conference picks. Of those, only six players made both lists. The picks on defense were a little more accurate (13 preseason spots, 15 postseason, with seven players on both lists), but still nothing special.

This year's preseason picks include eight players from Oklahoma and four from Texas. Does that mean the Sooners are twice as good as the Longhorns? Of course not.

To be sure, there are many things worse than pre-season polls and predictions. Just remember, they're filler and speculation. They're fine to talk about over a cold beverage, just don't assign any meaning to them.