Top 25 Rankings get Messed Up over Time

[tomenol]

First off: why are there no final BCS rankings?

I am in the fourth seasson of my offline dynasty. The first two years I was the OC at Texas. Than I got the HC job at USF offered and this is where I still am.

In the first year, the final Coach Top 25 rankings looked quite normal:

NCAA Football Rankings - Coaches Top 25 - Updated: Jan 1,
RK	TEAM (VOTES)	W	L	POINTS
1	Oklahoma	12	1
2	Ohio State	12	2
3	Nebraska	13	1
4	Alabama	12	2
5	Texas A&M	11	2
6	Texas	11	2
7	Kansas State	11	2
8	Louisville	11	2
9	Notre Dame	10	3
10	Clemson	11	3
11	Boise State	12	2
12	Oregon	11	3
13	Auburn	9	4
14	Michigan	9	4
15	Stanford	9	4
16	Arizona	10	3
17	LSU	9	4
18	Georgia Tech	10	3
19	Texas Tech	9	4
20	Maryland	9	4
21	USC	10	4
22	Wisconsin	9	4
23	Florida	10	4
24	Syracuse	9	4
25	North Carolina	9	4

Oklahoma won the National Championship game vs. Alabama.

The second year also looked like it could happen in real life:

NCAA Football Rankings - Coaches Poll - Updated: Jan 1,
RK	TEAM (VOTES)	W	L	POINTS
1	Texas A&M	11	2
2	Michigan	11	2
3	Ohio State	13	1
4	Oklahoma	11	2
5	Alabama	11	3
6	Miami	10	3
7	Texas	11	2
8	Georgia Tech	11	3
9	Louisville	10	3
10	Oregon State	10	3
11	Florida	10	3
12	USC	9	4
13	NC State	9	4
14	Washington	11	3
15	Iowa	11	3
16	Florida State	10	4
17	Nebraska	9	4
18	Boise State	11	3
19	UCF	12	2
20	Kansas	9	4
21	Maryland	9	4
22	Georgia	10	4
23	Utah State	10	3
24	Arizona State	10	4
25	Virginia Tech	8	5

Texas A&M won the National Title vs. Alabama.

You could argue why 13-1 Ohio State (Big10 Champion and Rose Bowl Champion vs #18 Arizona State) is ranked behind 11-2 Michigan (Sugar Bowl Champion vs. #5 Georgia Tech), but overall these rankings look ok to me.

In year three is when it all derailed and "small" schools start to climb up:

NCAA Football Rankings - Coaches Poll - Updated: Jan 1,
RK	TEAM (VOTES)	W	L	POINTS
1	USC	13	1
2	Texas A&M	12	2
3	TCU	11	2
4	Alabama	11	2
5	Oklahoma	11	2
6	Georgia Tech	12	2
7	UL Lafayette	12	1
8	Nebraska	9	4
9	UCF	12	2
10	San DIego State	11	3
11	Utah	10	3
12	Iowa	9	4
13	Northern Illinois	10	3
14	Maryland	10	4
15	Indiana	10	4
16	Army	11	2
17	LSU	8	5
18	Vanderbilt	8	5
19	Texas	9	4
20	Oregon State	8	5
21	Marshall	10	3
22	Michigan	8	5
23	North Carolina	8	5
24	Ohio	9	4
25	Oregon	8	6

USC beat Georgia Tech for the National Title.

Year four is now the craziest:

2-loss Sun Belt teams ranked in the top 10? Ahead of a 2-loss ACC and a 2-loss Big12 team??

But the best thing: guess who won the national title game? USC beat Nebraska but is ranked behind them and got less votes for 1st?!?!? #3 Georgia beat #5 Ohio State in the Rose BOwl and dropped to #4, leap frogged by Texas A&M who lost to #6 Virginia Tech in the Orange bowl... Can somebody please explain the logic behind these rankings? EA please fix this ASAP!!!

NCAA Football Rankings - Coaches Poll - Updated: Jan 1,
RK	TEAM (VOTES)	W	L	POINTS
1	Nebraska (38)	12	2
2	USC (22)	13	1
3	Texas A&M	10	4
4	Georgia	10	3
5	Ohio State	10	3
6	Arkansas State (1)	11	2
7	Virginia Tech	11	2
8	UL Lafayette	11	2
9	UCF	10	3
10	Oklahoma	10	3
11	Connecticut	11	2
12	USF	12	2
13	Michigan	9	4
14	Baylor	11	2
15	Georgia Tech	10	4
16	Oregon	9	4
17	South Carolina	8	5
18	Pittsburgh	10	3
19	TCU	8	5
20	Florida	10	4
21	West Virginia	8	5
22	Maryland	8	5
23	Rice	12	2
24	Northern Illinois	12	2
25	Clemson	9	5

[MTF2486]

1) and fcs team beat oregon state

2) alabama, florida, georgia, oregon have all lost to far inferior teams (UGA also lost to LSU)

WTF

[jbrew2411]

I for one love that the same schools are not always in the top 10 each year. You have to look at coaching changes, transfers, schedules, recruiting, and where a team is ranked at the start of the season. ULL finished in the top 10 in year 4 so they had to start high. Maybe they lost games early so they were able to climb back up. There is a lot of factors that can play out to see the results you are seeing.

It is a video game after all!!!

[tomenol]

Well, I can see small schools showing up in the top 10, but not so many after only 4 years... This should take some time to develop.

What I cannot understand is when a team wins the National Championship Game why they are not ranked #1 in the final polls. Or a team loses it's bowl game and moves from #4 to #3, although other top 6 teams won.

[jejones]

USC won two years in a row....I see nothing wrong :P

[ajk49er]

I think its pretty awesome. ULL seems to do well in a lot of franchise's. if they do well year 1, they often get a darn awesome coordinator to take over as HC(major applewhite in mine, who then got promoted the next year after 10 wins at ULL, to the HC gig at South Carolina)

sometimes teams rise, a coach goes in and can completely turn around a program. its nice to see the coaches actually matter to an extent. if you get a coach who can't recruit, you will end up falling in later years

ive seen remarkable consistency in the no name teams doing well, then having their coach get a promotion, or teams that deserve to be in the top 25 based on record even if YOU don't think so

ULL will rank high almost every year as they get a cakewalk schedule.

lot of things in this game need to be fixed. the top 25? meh. crazy things happen, Alabama won the national title the first 2 years in my dynasty, then just lost their undefeated year 3 to COLORADO STATE. things happen

[GruffyMcGuiness]

I just hate the fact that the user teams in my online dynasty have 3 or 4 losses every year but are always in the top 10 week in and out.

[EAGLESFAN10]

I dont see nothing wrong with the rankings honestly

this aint the NFL players wont be there 8+ years

Maybe the recruits didnt pan out ...

I like when lower teams become good