Don't blame me, I voted for ...

So there's a guy out in L.A. who decided to vote Boise State No. 1 in his most recent AP ballot.

A bunch of media guys got all angry and talked about the outrageousness of it, but the outrageousness of their hissy fits vastly exceeded the outrageousness of the actual vote.

First of all, I'm like most everyone else in that I suspect Alabama and LSU are the best two teams out there. But there's a vast difference between suspecting and actually knowing, and here's a news flash: Nobody knows as much as they think they know when it comes to deciding on a hierarchy in this crazy sport.

I have heard arguments from some that Boise State is the best team in college football. I have some doubts about that statement, but I'm not going to argue against that statement for two reasons:

1) Because I've seen Boise play this year, and I was extremely impressed with them -- impressed enough to think they'd be able to hang with Alabama or LSU.

2) Because I don't know.

I don't know this Wolf character, and maybe people are right in asserting that he's just trying to draw attention to himself. But it's not as though he's putting, say, Florida State at the top of his ballot. Boise is undefeated. Boise played Georgia on the road (yes, it was a road game) and made Georgia look silly in a way no one else (including teams from the big, bad SEC) have been able to do since. Boise does not play a good schedule, and that bothers me. But I'm not convinced Boise is not the best team out there.

Here's the thing that's so silly about a bunch of writers and talking heads getting their boxers in a wad over one dude having the audacity to place Boise atop his poll:

The college football system is based on opinion, and yet we shred the opinions of those we do not share.

Speaking of Florida State, do you remember when the Seminoles were ranked No. 5 in the preseason? The same people who are ticked off at some guy in L.A. for ranking Boise No. 1 thought Florida State was an elite team despite the fact Florida State had done very little last season to show it belonged in an elite category.

When some voters' preseason ballots became public, I remember some voters showering other voters with derision for having the audacity to vote the Seminoles 15th or 16th.

My Twitter response to these angry people at the time was: "How do you know Florida State is Top 5 material? What's so outrageous about ranking the Seminoles a good bit lower?"

Heading into the 2010 season, on the heels of Alabama's undefeated run to the BCS title in 2009, all we heard was that the Crimson Tide was basically the 1985 Bears. If you didn't think so, you were a nut job. Then Alabama went out and lost three games last year.

This groupthink phenomenon is one of the reasons this system stinks. In general, we sportswriters and media types tend to think our possession of a press pass gives us some sort of exclusive knowledge unavailable to mere mortals who pay actual money to get into the games. We think we know everything, and thus we're confrontational and condescending to people whose opinions aren't aligned with those of the pack.

And it's not limited to the polarization surrounding Boise State. What if someone watched Oklahoma closely last week in the Sooners' annihilation of Kansas State and determined they were better than everyone else? They'd get hammered for having the gall to vote a one-loss team atop their poll.

And look at Stanford this week. You could make the case that the Cardinal actually did something impressive by going to L.A. and outlasting a good Southern Cal team. But this is a beauty contest, and Stanford didn't rack up the requisite style points in a triple-overtime win. So Stanford lost 40 points in the AP poll.

It should be pointed out that the media poll doesn't even matter because it's not a part of the BCS equation. It's just window dressing, something to talk about. And that's what media polls should be -- kind of like with college basketball, which has a legitimate method of determining its champion.

It should also be noted that a lot of sportswriters exercise a lot more diligence and thought in voting than do voters in the polls that do matter. The coaches' poll might as well be called the "Sports Information Director Poll" because that's usually who votes for coaches who are too immersed in their own teams to pay attention to a bunch of other teams. And don't get me started on the Harris Poll.

But all these polls are guesses and nothing more. It's a shame that guesswork plays such a monumental role in deciding which teams play for the championship, but that's where we are.

And if a guy in L.A. guesses that Boise is the best team in the land, who are we to say he's full of it?

LW