The preseason college football polls are out for the 2012 season. Well, at least on the coaches’ side and Nebraska is tabbed No. 16 sandwiched between No. 15 Texas and No. 17 TCU.
What’s always interesting about preseason rankings is listening to talk shows, reading message boards, Twitter, Facebook, etc., is the reactions and banter that the rankings elicit. Just a gut feeling but No. 16 is perhaps the highest I would have imagined the Huskers being ranked and is not as surprising as one would think considering they went 9-4 last season. Though Husker head coach Bo Pelini has had a hot and cold relationship with local media and fans, he does have a lot of respect within the coaching profession. In addition, Nebraska has a third-year starter returning at quarterback in Taylor Martinez. Yes, he has been a polarizing figure among local media and fans but pollsters will normally boost a team higher if it returners experience at quarterback.
The self-proclaimed gurus take into account who is coming back and how many upper classmen a team has for leadership purposes. Nebraska has more than it has had in a long time so such a rating is not unexpected. Running back Rex Burkhead and Martinez bring experience and there most likely won’t be any freshman starting this year. As for the coaches, it’s as much about tradition and respect as anything else at this juncture.
While everyone is entitled to think whether or not a team is ranked too low, too high or just about right, ratings at this time is nothing more than a popularity contest. It’s good to be rated and thought of highly, but it’s a matter of earning your keep when it’s all said and done. Playing the kind of schedule Nebraska has won’t hide any flaws and if the Huskers are worthy it won’t be a fluke come November. There is not a game on the schedule the Huskers cannot win but the slate also has its share of swing games. While the quality at the top of the Big 10 Conference is not presently as good as say the SEC, Big 12 or Pac 12, it could be argued that the quality in the middle is stronger than those conferences.
Preseason rankings should always be taken with a grain of salt and while college football will always have teams that surprise and disappoint, the college game is also much easier to predict before the season than the NFL. There is definitely more parity in the college game than in years past but not quite like the NFL. In college the 85-player scholarship limit works similarly to the NFL’s salary cap and while it’s not unusual to see college players transfer schools, you won’t see it happen within its own conference. It’s not like you would ever see Tim Tebow transfer from Florida to Alabama or Tommie Frazier go from Nebraska to Oklahoma. In the NFL, however, free agency runs rampant. Deion Sanders played for both the Cowboys and Redskins. Marcus Allen played for both the Raiders and Chiefs.
The last 15 or so years in the NFL, it is not uncommon for a team to go from 4-12 one year to say 13-3 the next. In college, however, such a turnaround is likely to be a 2-5 year process. That can also depend on the stature of your program. In 2007-2008, Nebraska went from 5-7 to 9-4. In 2010-2011, Michigan spiked from 7-6 to 11-2. Those are two programs that have enough name recognition that is such where they will have enough material to make a quick turnaround if they have a bad year. However, at a perennial loser program, going from 3-9 to 9-3 is more likely to take 2-5 years.
That said, college football preseason prognostications are more likely to be accurate than the NFL.
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