Stillwater NewsPress

OSU Sports

August 19, 2012

3 p.m. Sports Minute

By Nick Snow Stillwater NewsPress

STILLWATER, Okla. — It used to be that college football fans would slowly come out of their slumber by late July — right about the time the first preseason magazines hit the racks. The release of the USA Today Coaches’ Poll only added fuel to the fire inside fans yearning to hear how their team is projected to do.

But as the Football Bowl Subdivision moves closer and closer to a playoff — beginning with a four-team playoff in two years — those polls may become obsolete.

“The Associated Press poll is based on writers for the most part, so I can’t imagine that would ever go away,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. “The other polls there is always so much debate on who should be on them — what the criteria is for why people are voting. I think that there’s a trend moving towards fans are kind of tired of it. But I would never see the AP going away.”

Gundy’s Oklahoma State team is ranked No. 19 in both the AP and coaches’ poll, while Oklahoma enters the season as fourth in Saturday’s AP poll. Overall, the Big 12 put six teams in the top 25 — including Big 12 newcomer West Virginia at 11th.

Although Gundy and the Cowboys watched the polls closely through the end of the season last year, the Oklahoma State coach said he really doesn’t pay attention to any preseason rankings.

“It’s just like preseason magazines,” Gundy said. “The information in there is for the most part irrelevant. Everybody buys them. Everybody wants to know how their team is going to do. It gives them something to talk about on sports talk radio and discussions at the office. It’s just verbiage.”

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