I used to think the Dawg Sports poll question was just an unscientific method for compiling informal survey results having no significance or utility beyond making the reader periodically pause momentarily to say, "Huh! Well, I'll be darned!"
This, though, is a fallacy. As noted by Orson Swindle, my SportsBlogsNation colleague and nominee for Best National College Football Blog, Sunday Morning Quarterback, is now having his famous treatise on poll ranking methods cited as analogous to presidential politics.
You may count me among the first to draw meaningful connections between college football and self-government, but the fellows sitting in for that annoyingly condescending self-important pontificator without discernible expertise or insight belittle college football by likening the limp field of 2008 presidential contenders to teams from the greatest game ever invented.
I mean, come on . . . they're just presidential candidates; it ain't like they're characters from "Grey's Anatomy"!
In any event, now that the intricacies of college football polling have penetrated not only the Beltway but also the skulls of people with so few critical reasoning skills that they somehow mistake Andrew Sullivan for something resembling a conservative, I give you the results of the voting on the most recent Dawg Sports poll question with a heightened sense of the importance of the enterprise.
The inquiry put before you for the good of the order was this: "How should this year's national championship have been settled?" A 44 per cent plurality took what I consider the erroneous view that there should have been a playoff, while 32 per cent believed that the B.C.S. got the right result by pairing Florida and Ohio State in Glendale.
My opinion that the traditional bowl tie-ins should have been restored garnered the support of just 15 per cent of those casting ballots, while a scant nine per cent felt that Michigan deserved a rematch in the desert.
Hey, don't blame me . . . blame the voters!
In short, nearly one in three of you liked the fact that the Gators got into the game against the Buckeyes, while fewer than one in ten of you believed that the Wolverines got gypped. To my chagrin, nearly three times as many of you would rather have seen a playoff than a return to college football's traditional postseason arrangements.
The current poll question asks for your reaction to Mark Richt's decision to promote Mike Bobo to offensive coordinator. I think it's a great idea; what do you think?
While you're in a frame of mind to answer questions, feel free to respond to the following hypothetical inquiry in the comments below or in the diaries to the right: "How different a place would the world be if Reggie Ball had spent the fall semester taking sociology courses at Auburn?" Discuss.
Go 'Dawgs!