The USA Today preseason College Football poll is out and things are looking good for Virginia Tech. At first glace being in fifteenth place may seem disappointing (uh we did lose that bowl game) but if you look at not only who is in front of us but more importantly the schedules of who is in front of us we have ourselves a nice cherry picking fast lane to the top of the polls (and were not even in the Pac 10).

If you consider all the cannibalization that MUST happen as the season goes on with the top 15 teams and combine that with the unlikely event that more than just Fresno State will go undefeated and then pour on top of it all the fact that we play the chump lineup of the ACC mixed in with some schools I didn’t even know had a football team let alone an athletic department and you get a pretty decent outlook for 2008. Just look at the top 14 teams in front of us and what they have to face from just themselves:

#1 Georgia plays #5 Florida, #6 LSU (away), #11 Auburn #1.1 USC plays #3 Ohio State #3 Ohio State plays #1.1 USC, #131 Youngstown State, and #12 Wisconsin #4 Oklahoma plays #13 Kansas and #10 Texas #5 Florida plays #6 LSU, #1 Georgia #6 LSU plays #5 Florida, #1 Georgia, #11 Auburn and #2 (million) Tulane #7 Missouri plays #13 Kansas and #10 Texas #8 West Virginia plays #11 Auburn #9 Clemson plays … uhhh they always fuck up #10 Texas plays #7 Missouri, #4 Oklahoma, #13 Kansas and #14 Texas Tech #11 Auburn plays #6 LSU, #8 West Virginia and #1 Georgia #12 Wisconsin plays #3 Ohio State #13 Kansas plays #4 Oklahoma and #10 Texas #10 Texas Tech plays #10 Texas and #4 Oklahoma #15 Virginia Tech plays… YAYYYYY NO ONE!

Even IF Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas were win out with the other team match ups as they are the WORST we could be with an undefeated record would be number 4. Much more likely however is that all of these teams will take turns knocking one another off under respective home field advantages.

There are a few concerns in the pecking order before us- including miserable Clemson who decided they would beef up their schedule by playing seven South Carolina high schools this season, and I’m sure FOX has a contingency plan ready in case Missouri wins out and ends up BCS #1 – it’s likely that they will sell the championship game to Versus and air the comeback of ‘Keen Eddie’ instead.

Virginia Tech often finds itself in a position where we play a bunch of cupcakes in the first five or six games of the season, inflating our confidence, only to struggle against semi-decent opponents to take our first loss (GT in 2006, Miami in 2005, NC State in 2004, WVU in 2003…) before regrouping for a good finish and trip to a bowl game deserving of at least the Pizza Hut blimpuHH. But in this year’s case we are cupcake walking all season (and sure to get dismantled in whichever bowl game we go to). There are good things to look forward to this season, every weekend is a chance for us to show our power as we sip iced tea playing against teams like Furman and Western Kentucky while the rest of the top 25 play king of the mountain and smash each other to bits.