Seats at the polls

Last season, the Wimple was curious to see the press take interest in the relatively large number of cartel-outsider teams in the polls: as many as six non-cartel teams were ranked at a time in 2008. Being ranked is one of college football's most overlooked Big Deals. Ranked teams get press coverage merely because they're ranked; they get little blurbs on ESPN, in the newspapers, in score rundowns at halftime, etc. Ranked teams are familiar teams, by sheer volume of mentions, if nothing else.

It follows, then, that any non-cartel team on the polls is taking away a certain amount of press coverage from a cartel team: and the Wimple applauds.

So just how unusual was last season's splurge in ranked non-cartel teams? Here follows a survey of non-cartel teams' appearances in the last 17 college football seasons' AP polls, with each season's per-week average. (that's key, because the number of weeks-- and polls-- in the season varies.)

2008-- 73, 4.294
2007-- 30, 1.875
2006-- 28, 1.750
2005-- 37 (23 without Louisville, a tweeny in '05), 2.313 (1.438)
2004-- 57, 3.563
2003-- 48, 2.824
2002-- 33, 1.833
2001-- 44, 2.588
2000-- 37, 2.176
1999-- 47, 2.765
1998-- 22, 1.375
1997-- 29, 1.611
1996-- 41, 2.278
1995-- 5, 0.294
1994-- 33, 1.941
1993-- 21, 1.235
1992-- 10, 0.588

source: AP Poll archive

Clearly the broad trajectory for the outsiders is up; and just as clearly, 2008 was a banner year for press attention to cartel-outsiders. 2009 may exceed it: look for TCU, Boise State, Nevada, BYU, East Carolina, Southern Miss, and perhaps Utah, Air Force, Houston, UTEP, and Central Michigan to spend multiple weeks in the polls.