Great article from Utah - Pre-season rankings suck!

Falcon30 · Post by **Falcon30** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:54 pm

Last year, the 2004 Associated Press pre-rankings ranked USC, Oklahoma, Georgia, LSU and Florida State as the top five. Utah was the only mid-major in its top 25 pre-rankings at No. 20.

The end of the year listed Utah (No. 4), Louisville (No. 6) and Boise State (No. 12) in the top 15.

With the move to the Big East -- a BCS conference -- Louisville was given a No. 8 pre-ranking for this season, even though the Cardinals are only returning 13 starters.

It shows that mid-majors will never earn respect before the season begins, but if a team is in a major conference they are somehow immediately recognized as an elite team.

from this Yahoo Sports article:COMMENTARY: Pre-rankings are worthless

kdog27 · Post by **kdog27** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:16 pm

It's true too, suddenly UofL is perceived as a much better team just because they are in the Big East. Nothing has changed, heck they might even be playing worse teams now, as bad as the Big East is.

Falcon30 · Post by **Falcon30** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 10:13 pm

Perception becomes reality as UL is now seen as a top ten team...while BOise State with more returning members from a team which was just a shade worse is no where near the top 10.