Good read! Thanks, Stewade.
Texas A&M Football
Ranking the 2017 College Football Rankings, Ranked
The College World Series and NBA Playoffs have ended, SEC Media Days are just around the corner and the only things currently keeping my attention in the wide world of sports are football recruiting and an endless stream of Woj Bombs.
(Sorry MLB fans, I just can't do mid-summer baseball in a 162-game schedule.)
So what does all this mean? It means we've officially entered peak offseason. Spurrier calls it "talking season," but I like to call it INTERNET RANKINGS SEASON.
By now, you're all very familiar with the listicle: a predictable (or purposefully controversial) listing of players, teams or coaches that typically end with "Alabama" or "Nick Saban." These are hardly new — they were called out for saturating the blogosphere over 10 years ago. They were introduced into the sports world via our favorite story format, the internet slideshow, by aggregating juggernaut Bleacher Report. They've since been perfected over at Buzzfeed.
We've all read them (we've even written them), and each offseason they get more and more creative. I'm personally looking forward to the "Ranking the 17 scariest DT-DE combos from Pac-12 North teams who finished with a losing record" ranking.
There are just so, so many to choose from — just Google "ranking the" over the past 24 hours and you'll get pages and pages. So this offseason, I decided to start collecting the good (and very bad) ones in an effort to put together my very own ranking … of rankings! It's very meta, which, like listicles, is also very mid-2000's.
Let's offseason!
20. Saturday Down South: Ranking SEC's 5 worst offseasons so far
This ranking is ranked dead last for three reasons. Here are those reasons, ranked:
3. They put “so far” in the headline, which insinuates there might be an update.
2. It’s not an actual ranking.
1. Texas A&M is listed directly after Ole Miss. The same Ole Miss that is mid-NCAA investigation, has already self-imposed scholarship reductions and a bowl ban, and can’t seem to buy a 4-star commit these days (see what I did there?). Meanwhile, A&M has apparently had one of the “worst” offseasons because Myles Garrett was drafted (#1 overall), Aggies are still grumbling about going 8-5 and the QB competition wasn’t settled in the spring. Yep, totally the same.
Saved you a click: Don’t click.
19. Bleacher Report: Ranking Every State by Their College Football Teams
When your algorithm ranks the state of Idaho ahead of the state of Texas based on anything related to football, you should rethink that algorithm.
Saved you a click: Texas #28, Idaho #20, Alabama #8, Kentucky #7. Okie dokie.
18. The Oklahoman: Ranking college football's non-conference schedules
This is a very (very) long list of team names with other less interesting team names next to them.
Saved you a click: A&M #43, Florida State #1
17. 247Sports: Ranking new coaches in best position to win right away
Pretty sure we're actually just ranking programs who have a favorable schedule and half-decent roster here. But the real crime is the ranking itself.
Saved you a click: Lincoln Riley #1, Charlie Strong #2, Ed Orgeron #3, Major Applewhite #4, Tom Herman #5 and yeah I’m going to go ahead and stop right there before we all collectively throw up.
16. DMN: Ranking Texas A&M’s Roster: Why Jhamon Ausbon will be a top five player in 2017
Unfortunately, I only know one player on this list because I couldn't get past the pop-up paywall. Therefore, I have docked it 10 spots. I then docked it another 5 spots for copying our annual ranking. And 1 more for trolling us with our own tweet.
Saved you a click: Beware the paywall.
15. Sports on Earth: Ranking CFB’s transfer quarterbacks
Texas A&M is obviously not listed here, but Jarrett Stidham is #1 and Kyle Allen is #3 soooo I’m going to just leave it here at #15, and label it “most uncomfortable listicle.”
Saved you a click: Kyler Murray is not on the list. We are okay with that.
14. Fox Sports: Ranking the SEC’s top special teams units for 2017
I really wanted to like this list — it takes guts to put together a conference-specific special teams unit ranking! I was hoping it would be loaded with some interesting data and maybe some Christian Kirk highlights. But when I saw A&M at #9 I immediately docked it 10 spots, and another 5 when I read his analysis of Heisman frontrunner Shane Tripucka’s punting average without mentioning that he pinned a school record 27 punts inside the 20.
Saved you a click: It's a special teams ranking were you really going to click?
13. Saturday Down South: Ranking the SEC West's 10 best candidates for SEC Offensive Player of Year
Just your classic pre-season offensive conference division-specific award candidate ranking.
Saved you a click: Christian Kirk #8, Jalen Hurts #1
12. Saturday Down South: Ranking best QB-go-to-WR combos in the SEC
We've got another (very) specific ranking from SDS here: a QB-WR combo, but not just any QB-WR combo, a QB-go-to-WR combo.
Saved you a click: Unfortunately A&M is disqualified since the QB has yet to be deci---oh wait nevermind they're ranked #3.
11. Fox Sports: Ranking college football’s Power 5 conferences based on coaching talent
This was part of a mailbag by Stewart Mandel — who was foolishly laid off by Fox Sports this week — and it earns decent points for creativity. Unfortunately, it loses points for the actual results. I may not personally disagree that the SEC ranks last in coaching talent, but I'm contractually obligated to professionally disagree.
Saved you a click: B1G, ACC, Big-12, Pac-12, SEC
10. DMN: A&M's five best moments from its first five years in the SEC
This is a very good list of very good things. However, it receives the same popup paywall deduction of 10 points. Those are the rules.
Saved you a click: #1 2012 win vs. Bama, #2 Johnny’s Heisman, #3 Kyle Field Redevelopment, #4 A&M Basketball SEC Title, #5 Myles getting drafted #1 overall
9. SEC Country: Ranking the 14 SEC cities based on craft beer
I'm cheating here, considering this was a 2016 listicle, but it was so good/bad that it needed to be honored somehow.
Saved you a click: Georgia is #1 and A&M came in at #11 (with way too many Austin references for my liking)
8. Bleacher Report: Ranking the Most Memorable College Football Plays Since 2000
This is the rare Top 10 list that includes 5 "honorable mentions" and 9 "Other plays". So a Top...24? Couldn't find just one more and round out that number for us?
Saved you a click: Manziel's scramble pass to Ed Pope in 2013 is an "honorable mention," #1 is the Kick Six, and just don't look at #2.
7. SEC Country: Power ranking each SEC team’s quarterback situation in 2017
Ahh, a "POWER" ranking. Different than a ranking (I'm assuming) because there will be updates, which is why this list made it into the Top 10. Another reason is that LSU is #14 and I enjoy seeing them last in anything.
Saved you a click: A&M is at #13, so I'm looking forward to that (hopefully) changing.
6. Texas Tribune: Ranking the most profitable Texas college sports programs in the state
This is a very solid ranking from an unexpected source. It's interesting, full of actual data and analysis and — BONUS! — Texas A&M wins.
Saved you a click: #1! #1! #1!
5. Bleacher Report: Ranking the Top 25 Freshmen for the 2017 College Football Season
Projecting the Top 25 players for an upcoming season is difficult. Projecting the Top 25 freshmen for an upcoming season is impossible. But don’t tell that to slideshow innovator/listicle perfecter Bleacher Report. I would have put this in the 20-25 range, but there are two Aggies on the list, so it moves all the way up to #5.
Saved you a click: Justin Madubuike #25, Anthony Hines #13
4. Gridiron Now: Ranking all 10 of Nick Saban’s Alabama teams over the past decade
Saved you a click: A&M beat the 2nd-ranked team on this list (2012), and thankfully never had to play the top-ranked one (2011)
3. Gridiron Now: Ranking the best football/basketball combination in the SEC this academic year
Gridiron Now is making a strong late push! This is a very good list, combining two offseason sports from one conference into a 2-page slideshow. Strong work.
Saved you a click: Florida #1, A&M #10. I'm expecting an improvement for A&M when the football/basketball/baseball one comes out.
2. Deadspin: Beans, Ranked
Now this is a ranking I can get behind. I'm glad he finally gave Garbanzo beans the recognition they deserve. If you’d like more lists like this, Deadspin has also ranked Balls, Cereal and the Numbers 1-12.
Saved you a click: No, you should actually click this one.
1. Gridiron Now: Ranking the collective wide receivers, league by league, for the 2017 season
Listen up, folks. We talked about this being peak offseason. Well, this is tip top — TIPPITY TOP — peak rankings right here. We're officially awarding it the 2017 Pinnacle Listicle™ to our friend Mike Huguenin from Gridiron Now. It literally has it all: a subjective algorithm, tiers, a conference ranking based on position groups, and last but not least, it's constructed as a 3-page slideshow!
[faints]
And, as if that wasn't enough, it's a series. There's more than one. The icing on the cake? Christian Kirk is named the SEC's "Marquee Attraction."
Saved you a click: NOPE! You must see this masterpiece.
BONUS RANKING!
To really top this off, I'm going to rank the sites based on my above ranking, using a tiered point-system-based algorithm that I wrote on a post-it note.
#20-16: 1 point
#15-11: 3 points
#10-6: 5 points
#5-1: 7 points
T-10. 247Sports (1 point)
T-10. The Oklahoman (1 point)
9. Sports on Earth (3 points)
8. Texas Tribune (5 points)
T-6. Fox Sports (6 points)
T-6. Dallas Morning News (6 points)
T-4. Saturday Down South (7 points)
T-4. Deadspin (7 points)
3. SEC Country (10 points)
2. Bleacher Report (13 points)
1. Gridiron Now (21 points)
Congratulations to the winners. Now, to talk to our developers about adding slideshows to TexAgs.
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