Clemson Football: AP Poll actually tells us a lot about the season to come

In case you missed it, or more likely ignored it, Clemson football was ranked fourth in the AP Preseason Top 25 poll.

I’m guessing a fair number of you are like my Sluggo Podcast co-host and RubbingtheRock.com contributor, Casey “The Beef” Cregan and think this, and every, poll is a colossal waste of time and space on the ole’ innerwebs.

You and Casey would be wrong. At least based on recent history.

It turns out the pollsters know more than we give them credit for, which at last look was close to, if not, zero.

I enjoy watching college football because I believe it’s the greatest reality show on earth as I told my wife when she failed to understand how and why I watch 14 hours straight on a random Saturday.

Here’s the thing though.  I like the wackiness to be confined to other teams and not mine.  The games involving Clemson? Check your wackiness at the door, please.

It turns out that the wackiness is generally on the fringes of college football and not at the top, where you find your best teams.  Good teams generally don’t do wacky or have wacky done to them.  They simply crush reams week after week.

So back to the brilliant people that put this poll together.  It turns out almost every year they eliminate 124 or so teams for us, as the National Champion generally comes from one of the top six teams.

This year those in contention are: Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, Notre Dame and Texas A&M.

That’s the list.  Why? Because the last time a team lower than sixth in this poll won the championship Jameis Winston was at the helm in Tallahassee.

In fairness, many people believe you can eliminate 127 and stop after the first three and I happen to be one of those people, but keep in mind I thought Ohio State was the team last season, so what do I know.

Clemson football was ranked fourth in the AP Preseason Poll and that might not be as useless as some fans think

It’s not rocket science to put Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia at the top of the list when you think about it, but the fact that one of the top 6 wins year after year, belies the fact that fans think “anything can happen” in college football.

Generally, if you’re team is mediocre anything can happen, a lot of it not good, but if you’re team is really good or really bad, we pretty much know what’s going to happen.

Sure, there’s a kick six or fifth down every now and then and that makes college football fun, but at the top of the sport it’s very boring and orderly in the end, despite being messy at times along the way.

The other nugget is that two of the top 10 teams preseason, generally fall out of the rankings all together and the author believes Baylor, Clemson and Oklahoma could all be candidates for that to happen.

All I’m saying is if Clemson won 10 games last season, I’m confident in the Tigers reaching that number this year and ending securely in the top 25 at seasons end.  He mentions Clemson’s close wins, but fails to mention their close losses, which with a bounce here and there, the Tigers theoretically could have gone 11-1.  Ultimately 10-3 was about right given the team and schedule.

So, while we can’t wait for the craziness to begin, we already know how it’s going to end in January and there’s no need to watch, right?