Tuesday, May 6, 2008

More very early preseason polls for this lull before the football season known as "spring & summer"

Here's one from Rivals.com from January that has only two Big East teams, West Virginia (7) and South Florida (22), ranked in the top 25.
Here's a January list from Mr. College Football that also has only two of our teams, WVU (6) and UConn (24).
In his January rankings, TheFootballExpert.com had only one Big East team -- West Virginia (8) -- in his first 25, but his list had 34 places, leaving space to include three others -- Pitt (26), USF (31), and Cincinnati (33). Most interestingly, he also had the Fresno State Bulldogs in position number 27 (and Rutgers unlisted, even among the "other teams to watch out for").
This early list from Scout.com doesn't stop at 25, or 34, but lists all the Bowl Subdivision schools. Again, there's only one from our conference in the top 25 -- WVU (9), but then there's a cluster of schools in the next 25 -- Cincinnati (26), UConn (27), Rutgers [finally!](30), USF (31), and Pitt (34). The Big East is rounded out with Louisville at 59 and Syracuse at 87. Our first opponents from Fresno State are ranked just below Notre Dame at 46.
Finally, this January list from ESPN.com continues the theme of giving short shrift to the Big East Conference with the inclusion of just two teams, West Virginia (14) and the Pitt Panthers (22), but it's interesting in that it put the Fresno State Bulldogs at number 25.
Is is possible that our Knights will be underdogs to the Bulldogs on Labor Day?

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