[Hank 91]

I disagree. While polls might not matter inside the locker room or to readers of this board, they matter tremendously to most of the college football world. Stanford has been ranked any where from 10th to 21st in the various polls, and what that means to me is that there's a decent amount of respect for the program minus Andrew Luck. If memory serves, we did not appear in the preseason polls following Toby Gerhart's departure, but now that an even more important player has left, we've remained in the polls. That's respect for the program.

Here's why that matters. The best high school football players in America pay attention to these polls, and it certainly helps recruiting Mike Sanford can sit in a living room, look a kid in the eye, and say, "We just lost the best football player of this generation, and we're still moving forward. We're not just one of the top 25 teams in the country, we're one of the top 25 programs in the country. We're here to stay."

This is why polls matter.

[Hank 91]

I disagree. While polls might not matter inside the locker room or to readers of this board, they matter tremendously to most of the college football world. Stanford has been ranked any where from 10th to 21st in the various polls, and what that means to me is that there's a decent amount of respect for the program minus Andrew Luck. If memory serves, we did not appear in the preseason polls following Toby Gerhart's departure, but now that an even more important player has left, we've remained in the polls. That's respect for the program.

Here's why that matters. The best high school football players in America pay attention to these polls, and it certainly helps recruiting Mike Sanford can sit in a living room, look a kid in the eye, and say, "We just lost the best football player of this generation, and we're still moving forward. We're not just one of the top 25 teams in the country, we're one of the top 25 programs in the country. We're here to stay."

This is why polls matter.