But first in your hearts

As you may have noticed, USA Today released the coaches' preseason top 25 today, despite the tiny, irrelevant, fact-of-no-import that said coaches' teams haven't even set foot on the practice field yet. Maybe they're making sure they have enough time to get their Christmas decorations up by Halloween.

Anyways: as expected, Auburn managed the feat of simultaneously being either greatly respected--11th out of 120 teams ain't shabby!--or baldly disrespected--fourth in the SEC and five places below an LSU team with even bigger quarterback issues than us?--depending on whether you prefer your viewing lens nationally or regionally tinted. Me? Like all Auburn fans, whichever one keeps the preseason spotlight on someone else, of course. (The latter, in other words.)

Frankly, it's exactly what Auburn both deserved and desired--deserved in the sense that a team with an unsettled QB situation isn't going to rank above either of the two East powers or the defending national champion even when a case can be made for Auburn being the West favorite; desired in the sense that the Tigers have the poll position to drop a game somewhere and still have the juice to land a BCS berth* if the cards fall right, but are low enough that Tubby can nonetheless play the "Doesn't matter what the media back home think, 'cause no one else believes you'll win this league" card. There are no complaints on this end.

One last aside: In a sense, the preseason polls have pitted the national media against the SEC locals. The nation takes Georgia and LSU for the SEC title game; the SEC guys have Auburn and Florida. A bit of discussion on this disagreement from the Eastern side of things, if you like, is available here and here.

*Not a prediction.