re: AP Poll is out

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Of course they can, but the rankings should represent what actually happened, not what hypothetically might if the teams played again.

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I agree but I wasn't suggesting such.

I think the real argument here is how one views rankings in general. Should teams be ranked based on their entire season or do you subscribe to the idea that you are ranking the best teams in that moment. In other words, what would happen if the teams played today?

LSU and other teams are different today than they were earlier in the season. This is especially true of young teams and teams with new coaching staff that are installing new systems. You can also have the opposite happen, where team start out great and fall apart at the end of the season. We see teams penalized for that all the time but we rarely see teams ranking reflective of how they're playing the past a week or a couple weeks or month but there's certainly an argument to make for that if your goal is to have the best teams in the playoffs that are playing the best at that time