Today, we celebrate the preseason coaches' poll, a useless tool which exists solely to create a bias that will infect all future polls for the upcoming football season. After all, after this first poll, every week is primarily evaluated under the caveman-smart "win go up lose go down" metric. It's insulting.
That all said, the Iowa Hawkeyes start the season at No. 10, only eight slots away from title contention, in this preseason poll. So although preseason polls are insidious thumbs on the scales of proper team ranking, hey, at least they're working for Iowa this year!
Full poll standings, after the break.
Team (first-place votes)
Nebraska
Oregon
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Georgia
Oregon State
Utah
West Virginia
The Big Ten leads all conferences with four teams in the top 15, but that should be short-lived; after all, no. 14 Penn State visits Alabama, and barring a massive upset, will be beaten by Alabama. But even if PSU outplays expectations and only falls a couple points short--let's say they get Daniel Murrayed again--they'll automatically go down in the polls, regardless of whether they played like a top 5 team in defeat. Because polls are stupid. Polls are stupid. Polls are stupid.
But GO IOWA AWESOME anyway!