Well it’s time for another year of college football and before the first games are even played the college rankings are screwed up. You don’t have to look hard to see the mistakes in this year’s preseason rankings for college football. The Trojans from USC who get ranked higher than their talent ever lives up to is once again sporting a nice ranking and why? The USC Trojan football team lost their starting QB and several other key pieces. It would appear on paper that their 2009 college season is on very shaky ground and a lot of questions to answer out there in Southern California.

The people running the college polls don’t see a problem with USC and for some reason both polls have these guys ranked as the 4th best team in the country. It just gets crazier every year and the college ranking system does work well for all the other teams in college football, but the favoritism it shows USC each year is ridiculous.

Let’s compare the Georgia Bulldogs to the USC Trojans. Both teams are losing key players and their starting QB for the upcoming season. Georgia was ranked 1st in the preseason polls last year and USC was ranked 3rd. The Bulldogs have slipped to 13th in both polls and this is a fair ranking for them in my opinion. USC only is dropping 1 spot to the 4th best team in college football! USC is going to have a brand new QB who is very young and even the guy they wanted to start for them this year isn’t going to be able to. They are now naming their 2nd string QB who is a freshman as their starting quarterback this year. While the Georgia Bulldogs will have a new QB at the helm, he is a senior quarterback and this alone should have the Georgia Bulldogs ranked higher than the USC Trojans.

 Joe Cox will be leading the Bulldog team into a tough schedule this year. They open on the road against Oklahoma State who are ranked 9th in the country. As always the Georgia Bulldogs will have to face a tough SEC schedule and their team will be tested to the max this year.

The Trojans get their usual weak teams from the PAC 10 to play against and don’t really try to schedule any tough non-conference games. This is because they know they will be ranked high and no need to risk losing to the teams that are better than them. The USC Trojans are not a top 10 team and they have not been a top 20 team in college football for the last few years. Everyone thinks they are good because they play in big bowl games each year, but they get there by having an unfair ranking and playing against weak teams. USC starts their schedule playing San Jose State and I’m sure they can win this game.

The Georgia Bulldogs lost their top ranking last year by playing against teams that were viewed as weak, but they kept winning. This year we should see the winner of the Oklahoma State and Georgia Game go ahead of the USC team who is almost guaranteed to drop by playing a nobody in the first week. This is how the ranking system worked last year, so let’s hold these people responsible and make sure they do drop the USC Trojans after week 1 in college football.

On September 12 the guys from Southern California travel east to play the Ohio State Buckeyes who are ranked 6th in the country. Now the 2nd most over ranked team is Ohio State and each school feeds off their high preseason rankings and the winner between them. Ohio State doesn’t play against nobody either and this shows up in the Championship Games when they get blown out by the Southern Schools that have the best college football talent in the country. They will be 3 more ranked teams on USC’s schedule this year and none of them are in the top 10. All 3 of these schools are only ranked high in the preseason rankings, so it helps USC with the computers.

23 Notre Dame (Lost 6 Games Last Year)

12 California (Lost 4 Games Last Year)

16 Oregon (Lost 3 Games Last Year)

As you can see a 6 loss team from a year ago doesn’t deserve a 23rd ranking like Notre Dame is getting. Just another example of more favoritism in college football. Oregon only loses 3 games and California goes ahead of them in this year’s rankings. I guess California is bringing back a lot of good starters from a year ago.

The Georgia Bulldogs loses 3 games last year and all to ranked teams. They lost to the number 5 team Florida Gators, the number 8 team Alabama Crimson Tide, and to their in-state rivals Georgia Tech who was ranked 18th in the country last year. This year Georgia will play the number 1 ranked Florida Gators, number 9 Oklahoma State Cowboys, number 11 LSU Tigers, and the 15th ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. If you add up the 4 ranked teams Georgia will play this year by their ranking, you would come up with 36. If you did the same for the USC Trojans you would get 54! Notre Dame and Oregon alone make up a combined ranking of 39 and Georgia’s combined 4 only goes up to 36! When you factor in the ranked teams on the schedule and the tough competition that is in the SEC compared to the PAC 10; then the Georgia Bulldogs have a much harder trip to the Championship Game than USC does. Yet, if each team only loses 1 game this year, you will still see USC ranked ahead of them. Just like you see now with their 9 spots they have ahead of Georgia on the college polls; before the season has even started.

Let’s get real in college football and rank these teams fair. It just spoils the system and college football when you have USC getting ranked much higher than they deserve. USC is not even a top 25 team and they should be unranked at this point in the season. I’m sure once again the bias guys from ESPN will do specials on their team, so they keep the USC brand and football team streaming into the homes of America.