Coaches’ Poll Has Tebow, Big East Doubters

The

coaches’ poll (and by “coaches” we mean “athletic department interns”) has emerged into the light, squalling and complaining about how people can, you know, look at it. To no one’s surprise, Florida is the anointed; Texas, Oklahoma and USC follow with straggling first place votes from Tebow Child doubters (read: communists). Surely there will be a nationwide manhunt to find the unbelievers. They will be stoned and cast out from their lives unless they had a good year last year. ↵↵Impressions from this crack poll analyst follow.↵

↵↵Teams in the top 15 most likely to flame out:↵

↵↵1. Ole Miss. Jevan Snead, beat Florida last year, had surprising season, hasn’t been a national factor minus a Manning in forever. Pollsters love to grab onto that sexy team from a year ago and overrate bowl performance, so the Rebels’ win over somewhat impressive Texas Tech has them high up in voters’ minds. Nevermind that the Rebels lost to Vanderbilt.↵

↵↵2. Virginia Tech. Isn’t anyone a little concerned that Virginia Tech hasn’t had a good offense in like five years and Tyrod Taylor, the next Vick (Not That Vick), wasn’t able to fully wrest the starting quarterback job away from Sean Glennon in two years of trying? Also, the Hokies open against Alabama in the Georgia Dome and have to contend with the ACC’s .500 gravitational pull.↵

↵↵3. Penn State. QB and RB return, but all three wide receivers are gone and Penn State has had a horrible streak of offensive skill position recruiting; the one big recruit they did reel in threatened someone with a machete and is no longer on the team. Also, Penn State has the least experienced offensive line in the Big Ten. It’s not like the Big Ten is great this year, but I’d be leery of those things in combination with Jay Paterno, last year be damned.↵

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↵↵Awww it’s cute, it’s like they’re complaining in front of Congress or something: Spots 16 through 18 are Boise State, TCU and Utah. Yes, No. 16 is where you always run out of decent BCS teams and go fishing for teams you haven’t seen screw up yet if only because they’re stuck on a regional cable network you can’t even get in Utah. ↵

↵↵It would behoove the Big East to disprove this poll: Big East teams in the top 25: zero. Mountain West teams: three. WAC teams: one. If that proves accurate, there are going to be yet more stern glances from Orrin Hatch this offseason. And that will go double if Boise State decides to ditch the WAC, as has been rumored. The BCS is currently in a four-year conference evaluation cycle that started last year—point Mountain West. ↵

↵↵If the year-end poll looks like the preseason poll, the MWC will be halfway to a powerful argument they should be given an auto-bid at the expense of the Big East. The only reason they don’t have that argument already—Rich Rodriguez—is coaching in the Big Ten now. ↵

↵↵Who wants some PCP? The real fun in these is always towards the end as you contemplate what sort of drugs were involved in the selection of teams like Michigan (3-9 last year, and an ugly 3-9 at that), Boston College (quarterback situation reminiscent of the one that saw Michigan end up 3-9 last year), Auburn (5-7 last year, fired perennially successful head coach, hired Iowa State’s head coach … apparently on purpose) and Tennessee (Crompton).↵

↵↵I mean, I don’t know anything about single vote-getter Troy, but I’m confident that particular Sun Belt team is a better choice than the rest of that motley crew. My guess as to the Michigan vote: Steve Spurrier. He can’t vote for Duke any more, but he can damn well vote for a team with a Duke-like record. Also he has problems with ballots.↵

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