Why Scrapping the Big 12 Preseason Poll Is the Right Move

Big 12 media days are right around the corner, and I always say that it truly is the unofficial, official start to the college football season.

It’s a place where coaches, players, and media gather inside Jerry World (welcome back) and have the opportunity to speak with one another.

It’s an opportunity not just to get to know more about the coaches and players, but also to learn more about the team itself, as well as manage expectations. A good example of that is the media preseason poll.

It’s clear that some players and coaches take it to heart and use it as motivation for the upcoming season. Which, hey, they should. However, I suppose we won’t have to worry about that anymore, since the conference has decided to eliminate the media preseason poll.

Let me say, as someone who has a vote, I am not upset. I am sure there are some media people out there who aren’t happy with the decision, but I couldn’t care less. The preseason poll is composed of votes like mine and those of many others. No stock whatsoever should be put into that poll. It’s a glorified opinion, and that’s all it is.

However, that is not to say that it has an impact on people. Perhaps no better example of that happened last year. After being picked to finish dead last, Arizona State ended up winning the Big 12 and was clearly the best team in the conference by the end of the season.

And if you want to look even further, just look at the top five in the Big 12 from 2024. Arizona State, Iowa State, BYU, Colorado, and Baylor. Only one of those schools was picked to finish in the top ten last year, and that was Iowa State, which was predicted to finish sixth in the preseason poll.

To say that we were all clueless last year would be an understatement.

You see, the Big 12 doesn’t have a perennial power school like other conferences do. We don’t have an Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, or Michigan. As I have written about this past week, the rest of the Power Five conferences outside of the Big 12 are extremely top-heavy.

The gap between these teams in the Big 12 is much smaller compared to the Big Ten, SEC, or even ACC. There is very rarely going to be a clear favorite year after year. Just look at the projected win totals for this upcoming season. No team is predicted to win 10 games, and the win totals between the top eight teams are within two wins of each other.

By making ourselves look foolish in the preseason poll, we are actually hurting the perception of the Big 12 among the rest of the college football world. Because when Arizona State was winning games, people were looking at them like a bottom-feeder team beating up on the best the Big 12 has to offer, when in reality, Arizona State was the best team.

So yeah, it definitely hurts. It’s kind of like the AP Poll.

It’s bad for the Big 12 because all they do is shove a bunch of Big Ten and SEC teams in the top 25, which does, like it or not, have an influence on the College Football Playoff Committee when those first rankings come out. And guess what? We don’t need a stinking preseason poll to share our opinions. That’s why social media exists, folks.