Problems with the Athlon Top 25

June's the first month where it really starts to feel like College Football is coming back. Maybe it's that the old school year is finally over. Or maybe it's that the NBA is winding down and we need a second sport to discuss besides baseball. But probably, it's the sudden, mushroom-like profusion of pre-season Annuals with their crazy pre-season Top 25s.

I won't lie. I love these things, beautiful, vapid, glossy bullshit-stuffed, but so, so irresistibly consumable at the scale and ease of pornography. They manage to trick everybody year after year. Maybe it's just my sweetest-of-all-time blogger hubris talking here, but I've grown wise to their tricks, and to prove it I'm going to poke a few holes in the recently-released Athlon Pre-Seasons College Football Top 25:

-Wisconsin #4 - On what authority? They've got a fat running back who stumbled over 12 teams, but lost to the only, proven team they played last year (Michigan) and all that was with the best offensive lineman the world's ever seen (Joe Thomas) and a dependable, if boring robot of a QB in John Stocco. The bad news, and the main reason the Badgers aren't the #4 in the country nor even the second best team in the Big 10, is that both of those aforementioned dudes graduated. The Badgers return to earth big time this fall.

-No BSU pre-season love, but plenty for everyone they beat in 2006 (OU #7, Hawaii #19, Oregon State #22). Honestly. What will it take for the Broncos to get some pre-season love? Admittedly, Zabransky' graduated, but they've still got Ian Johnson and should have a better defense this year. To top all of that, shouldn't the epic Fiesta Bowl win and final #5 ranking last year be worth something?

-Which brings me to OU #7 - No proven QB, and Adrian Petersen has flown the coop leaving what exactly? Well if you believe the experts at Athlon that's apparently the makings of a Top 10 team. I guess this is more a testament to the middling year projected for the Big 12, or the motivational energy imparted by being immortalized in Boise State's coming-out win, but still I think this is a little generous.

-Rutgers - This party ended last year.

Things they did right:

-USC is #1 - It's hard to argue with the ranking of USC as #1, given they return most of the team (except good old Dallas Sartz) that dismantled a very good Michigan team in last year's Rose Bowl. You can bet they've improved everything in the off-season except, apparently, John David Booty's haircut.

-No Notre Dame - this one I really, really like and don't have to explain, but it will be fun to see Jimmy Clausen not win the starting QB job, let alone the first of the Four National Championships he's counting on before he goes on to dominate the NFL.

-Michigan at #8 - Reasonable, and if anything a tad underrated, which should be comforting considering that Michigan has typically underachieved when expectations have been highest. This team has plenty of reasons to be good, so let's not screw it up by expecting the all-star, all-veteran offense to actually put up big numbers and blow teams out.

Overall it feels like they are just trying to be different for the sake of being different. Not ranking FSU? That's like anarchist blasphemy no matter how bad the 'Noles may look on paper after absolutely rocking a UCLA team Athlon says is Top 15 material.

So has Athlon no need for prognosticating credibility? Do they sneer in the faces of honest college football fans like you and me? Let's take it to Athlon and tell 'em what we think of their Top 25 poll. It sucks prunes.

(Next up Lindy's)