beginning of the season. What about teams that play early conference games or tough OOC games; are those false indicators too? The SEC currently schedules 1 conference game to be played each week of the regular season as a requirement of their TV deals with CBS and ESPN. Besides the SEC, other conferences and even VT (see 1998, 2005, 2006 and 2012 schedules) have played early conference games. Should those games be ignored now? If not, then you run into a situation where voters may even up judging teams on different numbers of games instead of the same number of games.

Then what are voters supposed to do when teams play an "easy" OOC game in the middle or late in the regular season. Are those OOC games also false indicators or not? I know people like to mock the SEC for playing cupcake OOC games late in the regular season, but even VT isn't immune from playing OOC games in the middle or late regular season (see VT's 2000 (UCF), 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2022 schedules).

I have no problem waiting for the first poll to come out after 4 or 5 games are played. However, the media won't like it because they use the rankings to help promote potentially high profile games. Which game do you think more people will tune in to watch on TV for Week 1; San Diego State vs. VT or #5 San Diego State vs. #1 VT? Even though the current way isn't perfect, I am not sure there is a better solution out there that creates a win-win for everyone involved.