im not surprised, this happens every year. i feel, Illinois will lose early (like always) (this is the one sleeper team in the bigten that starts off high, see purdue and iowa in recent years past) , MSU will start hot, then fall off after about 4-5 games, wisconsin is legit, and osu is a gimme with all the seniors coming back…. i think there’s some sort of theorem existing out there to all of this nonsense. i myself think they should wait until after the first conference game to release polls…but what do i know

I’d take those rankings with a grain of salt. I recall a season not too long ago when we were unranked for a good portion of the regular season and ended up winning the Orange Bowl.

Remember the days when the Big Ten used to have two teams in the top 5 and three in the top 10 to start the season?

I think OSU at #1 is undeserved. They returned a lot of talent, but the SEC has pretty much proven they can’t handle a spread offense team with speed.

Illinois at #16 seems about right, but they lost a lot of talent on defense, and I’m not convinced Juice Williams is that good yet.

Wisconsin at #18 seems about right. Always a good team but usually good for 2 or 3 losses.

I have no idea how Michigan State gets in at #24. What have they done besides beat us last year?

Obviously I think we’re better than #25, but then I thought that last year and the year before that too. You have to admit we have a lot of question marks. We’re playing new people at quarterback and linebacker, and our secondary last year was pretty average. The good thing is we play all of these teams ranked higher than us so we’ll have the chance to prove where we belong or don’t.

This sounds about right until we get deep into the season. Beating Illinois at home will show them, although it won’t be a game to take for granted like in years past. And I think Michigan State will drop off the face of the Earth half way through. I see us getting 10 wins this season. Of course that all depends on us getting rid of any growing pains at the QB position. The nightmare scenario for me is finding out that bot Clark and Devlin aren’t ready yet to face a team like Ilinois or Wisconsin and and we bomb while playing them. That would leave us in another Morelli type situation, where we can handle a team like Temple but choke against anyone halfway decent.

is win all of our games and none of this will matter.

Do I think we should be higher, yes. But like Mike mentioned, we have a lot of positions we need to tie up before we can think about being ranked top 15. We lost our best DB in an already weak secondary, our two best LB’s (although this should be less of an issue) and have two unproven QB’s (although I think it’s addition by subtraction in this case).

Last year we finished around #25. Subtract our losses and add in some potential and they have us right back where we left off. Until we prove anything, I”m okay with that.

So do Illinois, Michigan State and Wisconsin. Illinois lost a HUGE part of their offense in Mendenhall and their emotional leader in Lehman. Michigan State…...let’s face it …...if Bradley didn’t call the prevent of all prevents… that should have been a blowout. As for Wisconsin…..like us they lost a QB. You can’t put a lot of faith in the rankings though….it will all sort itself out. True we have a question at QB….but I think either guy will be fine and I think we have the potential to have an OUTSTANDING run offense with Royster, Green and Carter behind a vetern offensive line. The secondary was average last year….but King was playing hurt half the year and Scirotto had felony charges hanging over his head. Sean Lee was a big loss. He is a great player and would have been the heart of the defense. But…..we have plenty of talent at the LB position and we should be fine here as well. Also our defensive line should be SICK! The four deep at DT and DE for this team is amazing. We should be able to put a lot of pressure on opposing QB’s without having to bring much of a blitz. This should allow the secondary coaches to utilize a lot of nickel and dime packages against the spread. Do I think we are underranked….absolutely. But I als feel that like 05, if the QB position falls into place, this could be a special year at PSU. Everyone is already writing off the OSU game….but if we can go into that game with momentum and play turnover free ball we have a chance. Remember two years ago we were only down 14-6 at Columbus in the 4th quarter (till Morelli threw back to back pics for TDs)! This team has a lot of talent and a good many of the vetern leaders were here in 05 and know how to win big games. Let’s hope the mix of talent and experience translates to W’s on the field!