College Football AP Preseason Top 25: Oklahoma No. 7 and Still Getting Criticism

When I woke up this morning, I thought it was going to be a great, stress-free day.  

I had breakfast with a good friend of mine to hear about his trip to North Africa this summer and to share about my time in Denver as well.  I also had an excellent time with the Lord by reading Galatians 6:1-5 in my quiet time and spending some quality time in prayer about many things going on in my own life and in the lives of my friends.  

I was also greatly looking forward to going to the OU volleyball inter-squad scrimmage this afternoon and getting a peek at how good the team is going to be this year.  By the way, they're going to be really good and could definitely be a dark horse to win the Big 12 this year.  

I didn't even know that the AP preseason poll was going to be released this morning.  The past week has been crazy getting moved back into the dorms here in Norman and getting to know all the guys in my hall.  The poll just slipped my mind.

When I saw the poll, I wasn't surprised by anything that I saw, especially the number seven beside the Oklahoma Sooners.  The Sooners were ranked eighth in the coaches' preseason poll, so I thought seven was a nice compliment.

The morning was going quite well until a tweet from ESPN's Joe Schad popped up on my TweetDeck.  

It read: "Overrated in AP Poll: Arizona, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Auburn, Pittsburgh, Iowa."

I simply groaned, called Joe Schad an idiot out loud, and proceeded to wonder why I had to mentally come up with reasons why we were deserving of said ranking.  

I really don't know what it's going to take for people to take Oklahoma seriously this year.  Many people have jumped back on the Sooner Schooner and have high hopes for the Sooners and really feel that they can possibly contend for a national title this season.  However, there are still many that feel this team has a lot to prove before it is worthy of such a high ranking.  

I'm not going to go too in-depth on the reasons why I feel that the Sooners are worthy of their No. 7 ranking in the AP poll.  If you would like to check out my reasons why, you should check out my article that I wrote about their deserving nature in the coaches' poll.  The reasons are the same.

I understand the mentality of people who need to see proof to believe that a team is as good as people say it is.  They are simply the Thomas' of the world (see John 20:24-29).

I stated in my previous article that reputation goes a long way in determining how a team is ranked, especially in the preseason, where questions abound like rice in China.  Oklahoma has the reputation for being a very successful football program and because of that, the tendency is to believe that they can bounce back from a subpar season.

Oklahoma is not the perfect team that has absolutely no questions.  I'll be the first one to admit that there are areas in which players need to step up and perform at high levels if the Sooners hope to be successful in 2010.  

However, being very familiar with the program and after hearing positive reports from the coaching staff and players about how things are progressing in practice, I have nothing but confidence that players will step up and fill vacated roles or perform at a level higher than they have in the past.  

It's this little thing called faith and I have a lot of it.  

So to all the analysts out there, being analytical only takes you so far.  Sometimes you gotta take a little leap based on what you feel in your gut.  

Heck, Phil Steele sure did!