No Respect

The coaches’ pre-season poll came out today and the Nittany Lions were hard to find in it. To nobody’s surprise, I suppose, the pre-season pick for NCAA Division I-A football champion is Ohio State. Here’s they way they picked the top ten:

1) Ohio State
2) Texas
3) Notre Dame
USC (tied)
5) Oklahoma
6) Auburn
7) West Virginia
8) Florida
9) LSU
10) Florida State

Digging deeper, we have:

11) Miami
12) California
13) Louisville
14) Georgia
15) Michigan
16) Virginia Tech
17) Iowa
18) Clemson
19) Penn State
20) Oregon

And to round out the top 25:

21) TCU
22) Nebraska
23) Tennessee
24) Alabama
25) Texas Tech

Why do the Buckeyes merit such respect? Probably because they beat vaunted Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It sure isn’t because of any great expectations for a defense that lost three starting linebackers. I think there are probably some high hopes centering on Troy Smith and Ted Ginn, Jr., but Ohio State will have to earn my respect by beating Texas on September 9. They play in Austin this year. If they can beat Texas convincingly, even though Texas won’t be quite as good as last year, having lost Vince Young, I’ll start paying attention to the Bucks.

September 9 stacks up to be a day when these ranking go topsy-turvy, especially if #19 Penn State upsets #3 Notre Dame and Texas dispatches Ohio State. The Turkey will issue his official predictions for the season in a subsequent post, but I won’t be giving much away if I divulge that I feel it would take a miracle to beat the Fighting Irish in South Bend this year, particularly as early in the season as this matchup comes.

I’m not complaining about our ranking, though. First of all, I think these pre-season rankings are completely worthless. Furthermore, I’d prefer to start the season with no respect and move up from a low ranking. Let’s be totally ignored by our unsuspecting victims so we can sneak up on them and pounce. Finally, we can’t expect to be highly regarded at this juncture, having lost our entire defensive secondary, several linemen on both sides of the ball, and our starting quarterback and team leader. It remains to be seen whether this new team wil gel and, if so, how deep into the schedule that might happen. Our test comes early, on September 9, which could make or break the season.