Poll Day

PRINCETON FOOTBALL TICKET INFORMATION

The preseason college football coaches' poll was released yesterday.

Shockingly, the top three teams were Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia. Who could have seen that coming?

In fact, without looking, can you name the other seven teams in the Top 10? Of course you can, or most of them anyway.

Clemson? Check. Notre Dame? Check. Michigan? Check. They're the next three teams. 

The rest are Texas A&M, Utah, Baylor and Oklahoma. Okay, maybe you didn't go 10 for 10, but doing these rankings is not exactly difficult.

Say what you want about the Football Bowl Subdivision, how exciting it can be, how much money it generates, how important it is to so many people, but at the end, you're almost always left with the same teams.

The College Football Playoff has been contested eight times. Here are the winners: Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Alabama, Georgia. Here are the teams those teams beat in the final: Oregon, Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama.

By contrast, of the last eight NCAA basketball championship games, there have been 12 different schools represented. Only one has won the title more than once in that span (do you know who it is?).

So that's the FBS. Is the FCS much different? Well, somewhat. There's one team that has won nine of the last 11 championships.

When the preseason FCS poll came out yesterday, that team — North Dakota State — received 52 of the 54 first-place votes. The other two went to South Dakota State, which has to absolutely hate North Dakota State, given that South Dakota State (preseason No. 2) is routinely a top three team but has never won a championship. 

Yesterday was a day of preseason football releases. In addition to those two, the Ivy League preseason poll was also released.

There were two teams who were tied for the top spot: Dartmouth and Harvard. Princeton, who tied Dartmouth for the championship last year, was picked third.

Here's the way the poll came out:

1. Harvard – 108 (8)
1. Dartmouth – 108 (4)
3. Princeton – 105 (4)
4. Yale – 83
5. Columbia – 67
6. Penn – 49
7. Brown – 29
8. Cornell – 27

Ivy League football is anything but predictable. In fact, since 2008, six of the eight teams have won at least one championship.

Since the start of the College Football Playoff, the same number of teams have won an Ivy title as have won the FBS title — five. That's five of eight in Ivy League football and five of 131 in the FBS. Even if you limit it to Power Five schools, that's still five of 65.

Does the preseason Ivy poll matter once the practices and games start? Obviously not, but it's still a fun thing to talk about. And it's a sign that the season is not that far away.

That's certainly how Princeton head coach Bob Surace feels:

"We are excited to once again be talking football and feeling the energy as preseason begins. There are eight teams around the League who have high expectations this year and think they have a chance to be in the top spot when the season ends in November. Our focus right now is on preparing for the challenges that await us this coming year, and making sure we have done everything possible to give our student-athletes their opportunity to win games and add to our program's legacy."

Princeton has won four Ivy League championships in the last eight years, including a year ago. For the fourth straight season, Princeton will have a new starting quarterback, as John Lovett was followed by Kevin Davidson, who was followed last year by Cole Smith.

You don't win four championships in eight years by being unable to replace your stars, though, and Surace and his staff have turned over the roster several times and still been at or near the top year in and year out. 

How will this year play out? You'll have to tune back in to find that out as the fall goes along. For today, though, the poll makes for a good conversation.

Oh, and the team that has won two of the last eight NCAA men's basketball championships? Villanova.