Deadspin's Top 25 (Or So)

[AUChizad]

http://deadspin.com/5836231/introducing-deadspins-college-football-top-25-or-so

Introducing Deadspin’s College Football Top 25 Or So

Some people hate college football. Some people are obsessed with criticizing college football. The Deadspin College Football Top 25 Or So loves college football. We love college football so much, we will spend the season ranking the sport according to its own logic, even where that logic might seem demented or self-contradictory. Here's what matters: winning. Tradition. A tradition of winning. Crushing your rivals. Sportsmanship. Running up the score. Class. Swagger. Here's what doesn't matter: NCAA rules, unless their enforcement makes a team start losing. Graduation rates.

These are the rankings at the beginning of the season. As such, they are based on past accomplishments, reputation, politics, and style—Deadspin's subjective impression of how much respect each team deserves, coming into the season. The list can and will be revised, violently, as the results of actual games come in. Don't like your team's ranking? Buy the quarterback a Land Rover and tell him to start winning.

1. Auburn

Investigation? Nobody cares. The champ is the champ till someone beats the champ. On the field. Whiners elsewhere in the S.E.C. can stop phoning in tips about Cam Newton and start investigating why their teams weren't in the Tostitos BCS National Championshp Game. (A: Because they weren't as good as Auburn.)

Meet the coach:

    [Gene] Chizik has placed his stamp firmly on the Auburn program, including a "never say quit" attitude that saw Auburn rally from four double-digit deficits to win in 2010, including the largest comeback in school history when the Tigers turned a 24-0 deficit at Alabama into a 28-27 victory.

20. Alabama

Did we mention that Auburn is the reigning national champion? Would ranking Alabama somewhere in the top 5 change that? It would not. Win some games, Alabama. And by "some games" we mean "every game on the schedule, plus the BCS title game." Otherwise, you're failures.

Meet the coach:

    Entering [Nick Saban's] fifth spring in Tuscaloosa, his uncompromising dedication to excellence in every phase of the program has already resulted in the school's 13th national championship and the foundation has been set to yield long-term success for the Crimson Tide.

Am I the only person that thinks this is how the real polls should be done. I'm not just being a blatant homer here  relishing that we're #1 while Bama barely cracks the list (ok maybe a little). But to me that second paragraph sums up exactly how these preseason polls should be done, if they're going to be done at all. Otherwise it's based on pure speculation that has pretty consistently been proven wrong on the field.