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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Knights ranked No. 22 by Athlon

 In the world of annual preview publications, it’s never too early to release preseason rankings.

  Or at least partial preseason rankings.

   Athlon Sports is releasing its preseason top 25 one team at a time, and today it unveiled Rutgers as its No. 22 team in the country.

   Athlon named Tiquan Underwood and Courtney Greene to its first-team All-Big East squad. It named Kenny Britt, Kevin Brock, Anthony Davis and Jamaal Westerman second-team All-Big East and Ryan Blaszczyk, Jason McCourty and Dennis Campbell third-team All Big East.

     If I decided that instead of watching a three-way TV rotation tonight of the Celtics, Red Sox and North Carolina and Indiana primary results, I was going to rank all 119 Division I-A teams, then post the rankings on this blog, those rankings would mean as much as the Athlon rankings, Sports Illustrated’s preseason rankings, and the preseason AP, Coaches’ and Harris polls, which is to say, they’d mean absolutely nothing. 

    Remember when Rutgers was ranked 16th in the country prior to last season? And remember how beating Buffalo, Navy and Norfolk State elevated them to 10th

     Remember how the rest of the season went?

      By the same token, remember how Rutgers wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen prior to the 2006 season, then came within two points in triple overtime of going to the Orange Bowl?

      Having said that, it’s interesting to see where the various pundits rank Rutgers. And if I were going to take a stab at filling out an ultra-early poll ballot, I’d probably have Rutgers somewhere in the 20s.

     From an expectations standpoint, I think it’s a good place to be. It’s not high enough that anyone’s really gunning for you, but it’s high enough that if you win your first five or six games, you’re going to be in the top 10 and in good BCS position.

             

1 Comments:

Anonymous Ozzie Guillen said...

I agree these polls are nonsense. How do these so-called experts really know how effective and productive a team will be by watching them run 40 times and playing two-hand touch. The polls should be composed after a team actually plays against another opponent.

By the way, I would like your opinion on how Notorious Dame has the audacity to tell Rutgers to play a home game in Giants Stadium. Maybe Charlie Weiss is suffering from short-term memory loss due to his 636-pound weight condition. The Irish were 3-9 last year the same record as Louisiana Lafayette. Even Eastern Michigan had a better record than the Fighting Irish.

Buenas Noches to all and remember kids the Good Guys were Black and Jay Mariotti is punk.

May 7, 2008 1:57 AM 

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