Okay, so technically when a Buckeye student takes a crap that’s a better product of tOSU than the vodka/ hatchet wielding MC. But this would have to be up the scale at least when it comes to interesting discussion topics. Trevon D. Logan, an economics professor at tOSU has spent some of his paid time looking at AP polls and trends that people may assume to be true.

In particular, I test (1) whether it is better to lose early or late in the season, (2) whether teams benefit from playing stronger opponents, and (3) whether teams are rewarded for winning by large margins.

First of all, if anyone wants to question why an economics professor is looking at football polls I will say that no, it’s really not all that academic; however I also know that good teachers make their subject matter relateable to their students. Since Grey Goose and hatchets are a bit taboo, football polls does seem to be the next logical choice at making economics “come to life” for tOSU students.

The interesting discussion piece, is as follows:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I find that (1) it is better to lose later in the season than earlier, (2) AP voters do not pay attention to the strength of a defeated opponent, and (3) the benefit of winning by a large margin is negligible.

Okay, so this tells us one main thing - that really we probably could assume, but this is good evidence to back it up - the AP Poll is strictly based on individual bias. Meaning, that since the strength of schedule and margin of victory don’t matter… and that it’s better to lose late (debatable, but that’s the fun) that the AP voters seemingly have already made up their minds about teams and the outcomes of their games might not factor into their decisions as much as we would like them to.

• College Football Polls Aren’t What You Think (Freakonomics)