The AP Preseason Poll is Lame

Shower Thought - August 12, 2025

Audio Transcript

I remember when I was in college, the professors always hated Wikipedia. They would say, “Don’t you dare use Wikipedia as a source in one of your papers. Go to the library, go to LexisNexis, find good, elite sources from people like me.” The professors thought this way because they had spent tons of money to get their Ph.D., and they did not like that a bunch of mouth-breathers who published on Wikipedia were the ones everyone was going to for information instead of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. Wikipedia was open to the masses, letting anyone tell you what happened at the Battle of the Bulge, in the O.J. Simpson case, or what the genus of a frog is.

In sports, the elite professor types are the AP sports writers. These are the guys who went to Missouri, Syracuse, and Northwestern, who are on the beat, wear ties, and look down their noses at bloggers and people on Twitter. They scoff at the opinions of idiot talking-head sports radio hosts because they are the “real” sports journalists. The AP put out its preseason Top 25 poll the other day. Wow. It is like Moses descending from the mountain with the tablets. Oh wow, thank you for imparting your wisdom, AP writers!

Last year, these same people put out their preseason poll with the same tired predictions they churn out every year: Michigan in the top 10, Florida State in the top 10, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, USC. Thirteen teams that were in their preseason Top 25 ended the season unranked. I did not go to the Cronkite School of Journalism, but that is more than half. Go to hell.