Grandfathered In

As the single guy of the ManCave06, I get the opportunity to watch both college and pro football uninterrupted for the whole weekend if I want to (a later post will explain why this is not optimal behavior for a committed relationship).  So I decided to drop some college football news for you today.

The preseason polls in college football are out.  Now, for one thing, no one cares about the poll.  Oklahoma opens at #1 in all the land in the USA Today poll.  Will that stay the same?  Probably not.  Auburn, the eventual National Champs last season, started at #23 in the USA Today poll.  Oregon, who played Auburn in the title game started #11. That’s why the preseason poll doesn’t matter.  I think they should wait a week or two to see who really should be ranked.

But that doesn’t even grind my gears about this season’s poll.  Go all the way down to the bottom at #25 of the USA Today poll and you will find our old friend Penn State.  Now I went to Pitt, but I actually don’t know why I’m suppose to hate Penn State so I must put that out there.  But I really hate that a team that really has no starting quarterback can be ranked in the Top 25.  One of their QBs tried to transfer this past offseason (Robert Bolden), one is going to try to transfer (Kevin Newsome), one is ineligible to play (Paul Jones), and the other one just plain sucks (Matt McGloin, 2010 Outback Bowl).  We couldn’t find another team that actually had a QB to be in the Top 25?  What about West Virginia, with their potentially high-powered offense led by 5th-year starter Jarrett Brown?

I believe the reason why Penn State is in the Top 25 is because of everyone’s favorite grandfather in the Keystone State; Joe Paterno.  It seems like it’s a tradition, no matter how terrible Penn State is, that they must start in the Top 25 because of the old man.  JoePa is an icon yes; he is a transcendent coach in the sport yes; he screwed over the Pitt-Penn State rivalry yes; but that shouldn’t mean that his teams should get a novelty ranking just because he is JoePa.  If they suck, they should be unranked.  If you don’t have a quarterback, you definitely should be unranked.  The polls only demean their own value to the game,  assigning these rankings out like ribbons at a 5-year-old’s tee-ball game.  Instead of grandfathering programs into the Top 25 rankings, better yet the BCS rankings which will come out later this year, let’s give all programs, whether they are big-time or under-the-radar, a chance to prove if they belong with the best.  And yes, that is a double-entendre for playoffs, not for the bowl system of our grandfathers.