I can’t believe I have to defend WVU, but Lee said,

“Nobody goes from unranked and bitchslapped-by-Maryland to #10 in one year, especially with their vanilla recruiting.”

I’d love to have found a website that lists the preseason and final rankings in a poll for the last 5 years, but nothing came up on Google. If anyone knows, pass it on.

Lee keeps throwing up the Maryland loss as his justification. That any team that got pounded by a top #20 team at the end of the year like that shouldn’t be ranked very high. As I recall, they were ranked before the loss, and deservedly fell out of the top #25. I also don’t know why Lee cares so much about preseason rankings that are mere predictions and expectations of teams. Reality is only tangentially related.

As I said, Maryland was the only team that completely destroyed WVU (twice) last year. They inexcusably gave away the Cinci and Wisconsin games. Right now, it just looks like Maryland is in their head

So, let’s take a look at the top 25 in pre-season.

Hey, look at #10: Florida. Finished last season at #25 (barely), after losing 37-17 to Iowa.

#11 WVU. See above. Considered to have the 9th best offense in the country. The #6 offensive line (and we all know how important that is).

#15 California. Finished unranked after winning that wild shootout with Virginia Tech, with an 8-6 record.

#18 Auburn and #19 Virginia both finished their seasons strong after disappointing most of the year, but still ended unranked.

#22 Wisconsin. Ended the season losing 5 of 6. Do that over the last 6 games, and ranking that team anywhere in the top 25 seems like a more egregious sin than putting WVU too high in the polls.

#25 Oregon. 5-3 in the Pac 10 without facing USC last year. Had a stretch where they lost 4 of 5 including a 59-14 drubbing to 5-7 Arizona State (also 55-16 to Wash. St. and 42-10 to Washington).

So that makes 5 teams, unranked at the end of last season in the top 25. Plus one that barely made it in the top 25 at #10. Explain the outrage again?