The first Harris poll came out. We are ranked #41, right behind UW (#40) and ahead of Arizona (#46).

hanky1;841972022 said:

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The first Harris poll came out. We are ranked #41, right behind UW (#40) and ahead of Arizona (#46).

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Significant or not, nice catch. Thanks H:
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/poll?poll=Harris

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Others receiving votes:
Baylor 126, Michigan State 121, Ohio 108, [U]Arizona State 99[/U], Nebraska 75, Michigan 67, Northwestern 42, Wisconsin 42, Texas Tech 39, North Carolina State 33, Oklahoma State 31, Duke 21, [U]UCLA 16,[/U] [SIZE="2"]Nevada 13[/SIZE], [U]Washington 12[/U], California 6, Western Kentucky 5, Fresno State 4, Tulsa 4, Tennessee 3, Virginia Tech 2, [U]Arizona 2[/U], Louisiana-Monroe 2, Toledo 1.

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#GoBears!

hanky1;841972022 said:

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The first Harris poll came out. We are ranked #41, right behind UW (#40) and ahead of Arizona (#46).

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If this is a college football poll, it just lost any credibility it may have had.

MisterNoodle;841972028 said:

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If this is a college football poll, it just lost any credibility it may have had.

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source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Interactive_College_Football_Poll

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Harris Interactive College Football Poll

The Harris Interactive College Football Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football teams. The rankings are compiled by Harris Interactive, a market research company that specializes in Internet research.

The poll was created in the summer of 2005 to replace the AP Poll, which decided it no longer wanted to be a part of the formula used by the BCS rankings to determine who plays in the BCS National Championship Game.[1] Unlike the other two seasonal polls, the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll, the Harris Poll does not release a preseason poll; in fact, it does not come out until the last half of September, several weeks into the season. Also, the Harris Poll does not release a post-bowl game poll; the Final Harris Poll is released following the end of the regular season.

The Harris Interactive Poll is composed of former players, coaches, administrators, and current and former media who submit votes for the top 25 teams each week. The panel has been designed to be a statistically valid representation of all 11 FBS Conferences and independent institutions.[2]

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MisterNoodle;841972028 said:

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If this is a college football poll, it just lost any credibility it may have had.

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Ranking us at #41 is not ridiculous. Sagarin's predictor has us at #42 and that includes some underachievement.

Sagarin rankings of our opponents:

Nevada #55
SUU #154
Ohio State #14
USC #11
ASU #7
UCLA #38

I guess that makes sense. I mean, we have had one of the toughest schedules in the country and all our losses have been to good teams.

Ranking in the 40's would be in line with our rankings in the past few years, which is not good enough.

Hey we were ranked last week...just way down.

From a rankings perspective, the ranking seems accurate - particularly if you include the scores - we have not been blown out of any game, and we were very close to Ohio State and USC. So a computer would think we were decent if it used scoring. ASU ranking so high is interesting. I think from a competitors perspective they have been the best team that we have played this year. It is just hard to figure that, since they have been bad for so long.

From a fan's perspective this is kind of a joke...The bears really do not belong in any sort of top team ranking until they at least get a .500 record. Going on a 4 or 5 game winning streak - OK - I think that would deserve a ranking. Going 8-4 in the Pac 12 I could see us being a top 25 team (but not top 20). Losing close to good teams is not a reason to be ranked.

Half way through the season at 2-4 is not a reason for some folks to rank us in the top 25.

But I'll take it!