Preseason in College Football? Interesting ...

I don't know why, but all the sudden people are wondering why college football doesn't have at least one preseason game. It's a very interesting question.

The NFL goes through four preseason games before their 16-game season. MLB has over a month full of spring training games. The NBA and NHL have a few weeks to hold their exhibition tour across the country. Even college basketball has a semi-preseason with a couple of exhibition games as well as some cupcakes to start off the season.

I can see both sides of the argument.

FOR A PRESEASON GAME: Let 'em take on a cupcake before the real games begin. Let Florida vs Charleston happen last week and chalk it up to a learning experience. Let the kids go out and pound on some scrub school. The scrub school will nearly make up its entire budget by doing so. That's why Charleston is heading to the swamp this weekend.

Also, with "every game counting", wouldn't it benefit these schools to not open up with a top opponent? Either Alabama or Virginia Tech will be eliminated from national title contention after their opening week meeting this Saturday. Is that really fair?

AGAINST A PRESEASON GAME: Nearly every team in the FBS has a FCS team on their schedule. So why not make that a game that doesn't count instead? Also, this is football -- not basketball. Basketball teams can be formed at any time for any purpose. That isn't the case with football. There aren't any roaming exhibition football teams that can fill these spots up. So it will be those FCS schools anyways.

But my biggest gripe against it is because college football is bound by their rankings. If North Carolina basketball struggles to a win or even loses to a cupcake, it really doesn't matter if voters rank them down a bit. You can play your way back to the top. In football, that may not be the case. Say if Florida, Texas and USC are all undefeated at the end of the year ... but Texas struggled a bit in their preseason game ... would voters count that against the Horns? Will that be their "yeah, but ... "?