Dave Campbell's Texas Football

[JB]

I emailed the Managing Editor of "Dave Campbell's Texas Football"

Dear Sir,

What exactly does Port Neches Groves have to do to get the ranking that thousands of "Indian Fans" feel that they deserve? I believe that their success is being overlooked.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


His Response

Thanks for writing in! We appreciate the feedback.



I’ve gotten this questions quite a bit this week, and it’s a pretty fair one. What I’ve told everyone so far is that, first, PN-G is a really good team, regardless of where I rank it. Their numbers speak for themselves, without question.



What’s hurt them in our rankings right now was A) the starting point and B) schedule. They started super low in most of our contributing polls (usually in the 110-120 area), and while they’ve been climbing steadily since then, it’s hard to leapfrog that many teams, especially many of who are winning themselves. Alpine and McGregor in 2A are going through something very similar.



The schedule has been the other big hurdle. They did beat Texas City, but the Stingarees are surprisingly down this year, and the Indians have only beaten one team in the top 50 (Crosby). But that said, you’re probably right – they’re not getting their fair shake. We’ll make sure to get them some more attention heading into the regular season finale against Central.



Again, thanks much, and best wishes –


T



T***** S****** | Managing Editor, New Media

IMG | Dave Campbell's Texas Football | Texas Football.com

 

[NDNTime]

Sounds like a crock of .... if you know what I mean.

We just gotta keep winning and prove all of the nay-sayers wrong.

 

[PNG Proud]

Didn't think he'd say...."Uh, well, we were obviously very wrong on this one. PNG is much better than any one of our psychic's around here ever thought they would be. Please extend our apologies to the entire Indian community"?


Don't see THAT happening...........................................E V E R !

 

[IndianFan]

DCTF is in the business of selling $10 magazines to football fanatics. No one ever said what's inside is accurate.

 

[Alpha06]

He is in love with North Texas Teams.. But what does this guy know. he also had Vidor number one in our district and us number 6 before the season started!!

all that matters is
PNG
STATE BOUND!!

 

[pngfan66]

DC and his rankings are RE RE !!!! who cares what he says or about his rankings. Lets do the talking and winning on the field !!!

 

[purpleproud82]

I AGREE 100% WITH YOU pngfan66

 

[prepballfan]

He is still mad that Vidor did not win district. The hardest poll to advance in is the AP poll and we did it. He must not have considered that we have the #6th ranked defense in 4A in the state of Texas. The Indians sport the 34th ranked defense in the state. This according to Massey Ratings. Our boys have noone to impress but themselves and their coaches. Congrats indians for a fine season thusfar and a bright future.

 

[NDN79]

The ONLY pol I care about is the INDIAN NATION POLL. In this poll PN-G is the #1 football team in the state, but more importantly, they are #1 in the hearts and minds of ALL INDIAN FANS!! :clap:

SCALP - EM INDIANS!!

 

[pngfan66]

He is still mad that Vidor did not win district. The hardest poll to advance in is the AP poll and we did it. He must not have considered that we have the #6th ranked defense in 4A in the state of Texas. The Indians sport the 34th ranked defense in the state. This according to Massey Ratings. Our boys have noone to impress but themselves and their coaches. Congrats indians for a fine season thusfar and a bright future.

WOW !!!!!!! I didn't know PNG's D was ranked so high in 4A in the state. So the 34th ranking is for all schools 1A-5A ? Our D may move up even higher after the Ozen game. Where does our offense come in at ?

 

[badndn]

Offense comes in much lower, but when you think about it with all of the turnovers caused by our defense, many of our scoring drives were short. How many times this season can you remember the NDNs having to drive 70+ yards? Not alot.

 

[fan]

My opinion is the only time ranking matters is if you are at the top--pressure big time--with that said we have been at both ends biginning of 74 ranked 100 and something went to semifinal and the other side in 75 we started out as #1, I think, and won state. I really believe our staff, players, fans and community believe in Fairclothe and his system. As Ethridge used to say "fellas you just gotta believe" and we did.

 

[PNG NDN Fan]

Polls just give fans something to discuss between games.

 

[afndn]

While I see his point of leaping so many teams ahead of them, it's ridiculous to rank teams with 2 or 3 losses ahead of ANY undefeated team. Thank goodness the rankings do not matter one bit.
Polls are fun though.

 

[colondn]

I also e-mailed the Managing Editor on Monday of this week.


Here's my e-mail, his reply, and the published comments.

Mr. Blank,

I follow your website with great enthusiasm. I am lately perplexed by the absence of the PN-G squad from your 4A statewide rankings. The team is 8-0 and very likely to be 9-0 entering into its game for the district title. The offense is balanced and productive and the defense is superb. Other ranking systems have seen the strength of the squad. DCTF still ranks other squads ahead of the Indians even though they have two and three losses. Do you guys have a bias for rolling up the score on hapless teams? After reviewing your 4A playoff assessments over the weekend, it seems that your preseason predictions have had the least accuracy in Region III.

I don't have access to Jerry's service, but I have seen them utilized in the site's writings.

What's the scoop?

The reply:

Thanks for your feedback – there’s truth on all fronts. It’s rare that 8-0 teams don’t crack the rankings, especially in the 5A/4A polls. They’ve been close several weeks in a row, and this weekend’s game moves them even closer.



This is a two-part answer. Firstly, our least amount of accuracy comes in Region III because it’s the toughest to predict, and 20-4A in particular was by far the hardest (I think I even wrote that in there). The reason behind it is that all the spreads for all the games across that whole district (and the region as a whole) have been so narrow –3, 4 and 5 point spreads seems to be the norm, which makes games very difficult to predict. It also means that there isn’t as much separation between the top of the district and the bottom. This weekend’s results seem to be a bit of an exception – pretty much all of them were blowouts.


The other toughest thing about PNG, in particular, is that they haven’t seen a ranked team yet – they did beat Crosby, which in retrospect has turned out to be a great win. But the schedule other than that just hasn’t had a marquee squad – and since we get to see so few teams (in the grand scheme of things) throughout the season, many times the best we can go off of is A) reports in from readers/writers and B) game results. You mentioned Jerry’s rankings – as of last week, PNG was 56, and this week they’re 46.


But like I said, there’s truth in what you say, and we should be giving a little more credence to PNG for what they’ve done. I appreciate you bringing attention to it, and throughout the rest of the season, we’ll keep our eyes peeled.


Thanks much, and best wishes –

The posted text:

Secondly, I've gotten an overwhelming amount of feedback from readers this week on the 4A top 25 rankings. Although a few lonely souls have asked about Kerrville Tivy (which toppled Cibolo Steele last weekend), the answer there was more or less simple: Great team, and if it wins against Alamo Heights this weekend, then it’s in for sure. But the other omission is far tougher to explain: Port Neches-Groves, 8-0 and easily in line for a district title.

#1 - "What exactly does Port Neches Groves have to do to get the ranking that thousands of "Indian Fans" feel that they deserve? I believe that their success is being overlooked."

#2 - Port Neches Groves is a top 10 team in the AP poll as well as a top 10 to 15 team in numerous web based polls. They have crushed the current 19-4A leader, another 19-4A playoff qualifier, your own magazines 20-4A pick to win district in Vidor, as well as Texas City. They have a top ten defense ranking statewide. They are 8-0 on the year but cannot crack the DCTF top 25. What gives?

#3 - I am lately perplexed by the absence of the PN-G squad from your 4A statewide rankings. The team is 8-0 and very likely to be 9-0 entering into its game for the district title. The offense is balanced and productive and the defense is superb. Other ranking systems have seen the strength of the squad. DCTF still ranks other squads ahead of the Indians even though they have two and three losses. Do you guys have a bias for rolling up the score on hapless teams? After reviewing your 4A playoff assessments over the weekend, it seems that your preseason predictions have had the least accuracy in Region III.

That's just a smattering. All pretty fair criticism, truth be told. Like I told all of them, Port Neches-Groves, regardless of where I put it, is a pretty good football team. There's no doubting that. But my reasoning for their current status (somewhere between Nos. 26 - 30) is twofold: starting point and schedule.

Simply put, PN-G started way, way down in the poll -- by PigSkinPrep's rankings, No. 118. In his rankings, it's now up to 46. That a massive leap anyways, and it's just a bunch of teams to leapfrog. That means as other teams that started ranked ahead of it succeed, they move up to. We could call it the Ball State 2008 Syndrome.

The other part of the reasoning is schedule. Yes, PN-G topped Texas City and Vidor, comfortably. But we whiffed on Texas City -- another down year for the Stingarees, I guess -- and Vidor isn't even in the state's top 50. Truth be told, Groves has just one win against a top 50 team all season -- Crosby, which has turned out to be a great victory. But that kind of schedule hurts you a little bit.

But like I said, there's no way I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that the Indians aren't one of the top 25 teams in Class 4A, and if they win this week in convincing fashion, they probably will be. It's been a long time in coming, but fans are probably right -- PN-G is due.

 

[90NDN]

That is often the problem of what I call "Stupid" polls. If you start way down in the rankings, which is the case with Dave Campbell, then it can take forever for a team to make headway in the rankings. I can't believe that there are that many 8-0 teams, but apparently there are. I follow a poll on 5Atexasfootball.com and we are ranked 8th over there as well. If a team loses or if they don't have a convincing victory, then they fall accordingly. For instance, RR Stoney Point was ranked #1 heading into week 8 for 5A, lost to CP (who was also ranked, but also got hammered by 4A Lake Travis). This week they fell out of the top 10..that's quite a drop, but most likely deserved. I find it amusing how so often you find a team who has a loss to another team in the same poll, yet they are ahead of them in the rankings. Okay, rant off, but I wouldn't let a ranking bothering us. We make a statement when we keep on winning. Polls are nice, they make you feel good about your team, but they aren't necessary in a community like ours where we support our team regardless of how good or bad they might be.