ESPN.com‘s Bill Hodge released his first early ranking of the 2004 college football recruiting classes on the Official College Sports Network this morning. Although Hodge released his early rankings much sooner last season, this is still the first 2004 ranking that I’ve seen anywhere.

For what little early rankings are admittedly worth, here it is…

No. 1 LSU
No. 2 Texas
No. 3 Southern California
No. 4 Miami-Florida
No. 5 Michigan
No. 6 Oklahoma
No. 7 Ohio State
No. 8 Penn State
No. 9 Georgia
No. 10 Maryland
No. 11 Tennessee
No. 12 UCLA
No. 13 Texas Tech
No. 14 PITTSBURGH
No. 15 Texas A&M
No. 16 Washington
No. 17 Florida State
No. 18 Missouri
No. 19 Alabama
No. 20 Iowa
No. 21 Michigan State
No. 22 Purdue
No. 23 Washington State
No. 24 Nebraska
No. 25 Virginia

I guess my first reaction to Hodge’s list is disappointment that Pitt’s 2004 class (thus far) is STILL ranked well behind Penn State’s class — despite the facts that (1) Penn State has seemingly lost every major recruiting fight that it has been in over the last month; (2) Penn State had to settle for the otherwise completely unrecruited Kevin Suhey to fill its quarterback needs after Chad Henne, Jordan Steffy, and Anthony Morelli (all PA quarterbacks) turned the Lions down; and (3) both Michigan and Ohio State are now raiding the Commonwealth with ease.

Of course, I am a little amused that Penn State’s recruiting class isn’t ranked #1, as several of the papers around here have been suggesting for awhile now.

But while it sucks to be behind Penn State — for the time being, anyways (their class is nearly full, ours isn’t) — it’s nice to be well ahead of such rivals as West Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Syracuse.

I’ll keep an eye on Hodge’s rankings as college football’s second season progresses towards mid-February.

Hail to Harris recruiting some decent freakin’ linemen already. And you know, Chas, I’m kind of glad that you did drag me into playing ESPN’s Bowl Mania Challenge.