Associated Press Sportswriters Release List Of Football Conjectures

You may know it better as the "NCAA Preseason Poll." Anyways, it's finally out (and on the right sidebar of this humble blog). As you know, unlike any other sport, one of the most important requirements to win a national championship is for sportswriters to adore you. Because of this, the entire MAC has been removed from BCS consideration. Maybe next year, guys.

Although maybe this is premature elimination. Temple and Central Michigan each picked up two points because the most geographically random pressmen had them 24th. This also makes CMU the highest ranked football team in the state (Michigan and Michigan State: 0 total votes).

Temple was slotted 24th by Raleigh News & Observer representative Joe Giglio, who really has the standard deviation of a wildebeest. They call him "The Outlier" in social circles. For one, he gave No. 3 Boise State its only first-place vote, rounded out the top-five with Nebraska, Pittsburgh and Miami of Florida, and provided Texas (12) and Florida (15) its lowest spots. What a rebel.

CMU, on the other hand, had to look to the mountains for their sole supporter. Wade Denniston of the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal had the Chips 24th, right ahead of ... Oklahoma. Yep, the same Oklahoma that's in the collective preseason poll at No. 7. Aren't preseason polls fun?

So far nobody in the AP has yet to board the Northern Illinois Caravan of Good Fortune, even though that very same sports entity also has them winning the MAC. So it's not like they couldn't find tickets.

Any reasons behind this? You could say that both CMU and Temple have named starters at quarterback, while the Huskies and coach Jerry Kill are still keeping that race open until maybe days before their opener at Iowa State. And after that game, the meaningless poll changes yet again, basing one's entire worth of a football team on one football game. Which is the way this process was intended to work.