Fr. Ryan Hall posted his NCAA football preseason top-10 way back on August 7th. SI arrived in the mailbox today... let's do a little comparison, shall we?
Fr. Hall .............................SI
1. Florida..................... 1. Florida
2/3 Tie: .......................2. Texas
"Texahoma"................ 3. Oklahoma
4. Alabama .................4. USC
5. USC ........................5. Virginia Tech
6. LSU.........................6. Ole Miss
7. OK State................. 7. OK State
8. GA Tech................. 8. Alabama
9. Ole Miss................. 9. Boise State
10. "Non- ..................10. Ohio State
descript
Big 10 team
to be named
later"
Well, SI made Ohio State that Big 10 in #10, AND put Penn State on their cover (kiss of death) with a #14 ranking and chance to go much higher.
Ryan was honest enough to put USC at #5, where they will end up unless they win every game and find a workable, popular health care reform plan for the nation. Meanwhile, the people who have influence on the bowl games will come up with yet another South Florida* - a heretofore unrecognized greatest-team-of-all-time that goes waaaaaaaaaaaay up the rankings and then gets annihilated in a bowl game with some big conference also-ran.
Even with SI placing both Oregon schools in its Top 20, USC will be faulted for "playing in a weak conference," while Florida Okeefenokee North Southern, Kansas Sunflower Roadsign A&M, Delaware Midcoastal Tidewater Tech and other rising programs from powerhouse football regions will bull* their way into BCS contention.
* Heh. Get it?
6 comments:
Yeah, I got the SI edition this week as well. I still don't know what the deal was with Penn State on the cover when they didn't even have Penn State in their Top Ten. Must be the Almighty Big Ten Conference (that actually has more than ten teams, but that's a side issue.)
I don't know where they get Virginia Tech being a top 5 team, they never looked all that good last year and they have to play Nebraska and Alabama in the first three games of the season. But then V. Tech is another media darling. I don't want to hear them complaining about the Pac-10 being a weak conference if they've got V. Tech in the Top 5...I mean the ACC is horrible.
I think USC's major problem is visibility. Nobody outside the West Coast ever gets to see any of their games unless they have the ESPN football satellite package or stay up until 2 AM. PAC-10 football needs some more marketing.
I also don't understand why they are ranking Oregon so high with a coaching change. That somewhat baffled me as well.
Can someone PLEASE tell me why Alabama is not number one. hehehe
Sorry.
ROLL TIDE!
(I moved there for one month in my younger years so that I could legally root for them.)
Good for Ryan+.
And on Oregon being ranked, Archer, all a duck needs is water.
Go Ducks!
SI does regional covers for the college football issue. The others had Oregon, Ole Miss and Oklahoma State. They were all touted as potential "Party Crashers" in their respective conferences.
Ah, thanks for that, anonymous. I spotted the article featuring those four in the issue, just didn't catch that each got a cover regionally. Guess we are close enough to Big 10 MN & IA here in SD... but we really share more common border (and fans) with the Nebraska Cornhuskers. So seems like OK St. would have fit. But nobody knows where South Dakota is anyway.
(That was me as anonymous above)
I bet that you could find both covers where you are. I'm a transplant from Big Ten country to the South, and they've never heard of a conference besides the SEC here.
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