College Football: Have We Learned Nothing from the Last Two Years?

Apparently, Dennis Dodd has not.

Dodd came out with his first pre-season ranking earlier today, and while I'm certainly thrilled that Georgia is not at #1 (I'm kinda of the mindset that starting at #2 or #3 is better - high enough that one loss isn't going to kill us - not #1 so we don't have a giant target splayed across our midsection), Dodd's choice of #1 team is....uh...well...curious, to say the least:

"Ohio State is No. 1."

Hmm. OK. Odd. You did watch the past two national title games, correct? You know, the ones where it was fairly obvious that Ohio State didn't even belong in the championship game, correct? Surely, Dodd's reasoning must be that Ohio State has plugged some holes and stands a chance in the national title game, correct?

Well.....uh....no.

"Ohio State? Jim Tressel has coached his Bucks to three of the last six BCS title games, winning one, so let's not go into full mock mode here. However, the Big Ten has become so soft that even if Ohio State loses to USC on Sept. 13, it should be able to recover to play for the national championship."

That's right. Ohio State is #1 because the Big Ten sucks, and uh...Ohio State should win the bad Big 10, so they probably will go to the national title game...so, uh...let's just rank them #1 and see where that goes.

I'm not quite sure in what universe this makes sense. I have no problem with ranking Ohio State #1, but to essentially announce that your reasoning for this is because the Big 10 is so God-awful that Ohio State will win it easily, then you make absolutely no sense.

I mean, argue that the Big 10 is going to be better. Argue that Ohio State will defeat USC. Make some sort of sense, for God's sake.

Well, there was a hedge:

"

This being Ohio State, though, there's always a chance -- make that a probability -- for a third consecutive national championship for the SEC. The Bucks are 0-9 against the SEC in bowl games and Georgia is sitting there at No. 2 ready to rip out its chunk of scarlet-and-gray flesh.

"

So....you think they're going to lose as well? Then why rank them #1?

Some more gems from the article:

Florida: "The only questions are the defense and how to keep Tim Tebow upright and healthy." Oh, that's it? So that's like pretty much everything, right? Hey, UCLA's only questions are their offense and how to keep whatever QB doesn't happen to be injured upright and healthy. Can we rank them #7?

"Tailback Emmanuel Moody had some problems picking up the spread in the spring." This is because Urban Meyer does not know what to do with running backs. He looks at them every spring, turns to his offensive coaches, and asks, "Why do we have a fifth wide receiver standing in the backfield?"