Every year before the college football season commences, every sports magazine, Web site or other form of sports media puts out a pre-season poll. These can provide a quick football fix when the occasional golf major, the Lakers soap opera and baseball aren't intriguing enough. Unfortunately, as Athlon Sports' recent pre-season top 25 shows, these polls are based almost solely in conjecture, providing only a few more clues to the season's outcome than a call to Miss Cleo.
Last year is an excellent example of how cloudy the college football picture can get. Virginia was picked to finish eighth in the nation by ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel, and even got tabbed at No.5 by the renowned college football analysts at Playboy. But instead of a BCS bowl, the highlight of Virginia's season was its continued dominance of the Continental Tire Bowl and its storied history.
Bottom line, predicting the top 25 football teams in the nation before the season starts, or in Athlon's case before camp even starts, is a shot in the dark at best.
Many starting lineups haven't been set yet, as in the case of Virginia's quarterback situation, where although Marques Hagans seems to be the favorite, his numbers in the spring game were not overwhelming. In his first action under center for the Cavaliers since his solid performance against Western Michigan early last season, the junior went just 7-15 for 64 yards and threw two interceptions.
Not only have the upperclassmen not all settled into starting positions, but most freshmen have not yet arrived on campus, many of whom will impact immediately in starting positions or in added depth to a squad. As Athlon points out, Olu Hall of Fairfax may be an important part of the Cavaliers' rotation at linebacker this season.
Some freshmen, like Phillip Rivers of N.C. State and Larry Fitzgerald of Pittsburgh can have an immediate impact on the entire attitude and outlook of a team as soon as they arrive on campus.
Pre-season polls are usually simply fodder for Internet message boards, and sometimes teams are inexplicably overrated, as many across the nation must have thought when a Cavalier team that went 8-5 the year before was picked to finish in the national top 10.
This year, Athlon seems to have overrated West Virginia in much this same way. With the defection of Miami and Virginia Tech, the Mountaineers are expected to feast on a depleted Big East and, according to Athlon, reach a BCS bowl as the No.5 team in the nation. This is a team that has been blown out in their last two bowl appearances, by Virginia two years ago at the Tire Bowl, and most recently by second place ACC finisher Maryland 41-7.
Adding that up, West Virginia has really come to play in the postseason, getting beat 89-29 in their two bowls under fourth-year coach Rich Rodriguez. The Mountaineers also lost their top rusher (Quincy Wilson) and top linebacker (All-American Grant Wiley) to the NFL. West Virginia is led by junior quarterback Rasheed Marshall, a player who is sometimes erratic and unreliable, as is shown by his brilliant postseason play (10-16 for 87 yards for no touchdowns).
But Athlon thinks this is a team ready to peak, ready to jump to the upper echelon of the sport. Other experts like Maisel have WVU around No.15, slightly more realistic but still high for a team that hasn't proved much of anything yet.
By December or earlier we'll know if Athlon was correct in placing WVU so high and whether the Cavaliers have moved up from Athlon's No. 25 spot. But really, it's just a flat-out guess, because as the Cavaliers proved, pre-season polls don't mean much when the bowl committees start visiting in November.
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