Oregon offensive lineman Mark Asper spoke to Sporting News and discussed the merits of preseason rankings, which the publication used in its preseason top-120. Preseason rankings are often maligned, though they do set a baseline for teams and have an impact on the BCS race. Voters tend to only move teams down for doing something bad, an old-hat way of thinking that gives those ranked early a leg-up on the competition. But what good are the rankings when nobody, including the voters making the decision, knows the makeup of the current team?
Asper took it a step farther, coming up with the best analogy possible for preseason rankings.
OL Mark Asper: "Preseason rankings are like dialogue on Baywatch—you need them to keep the show going, but they don’t mean anything to anyone except nerds."
This, my friends, is excellence in quotability. Asper both nails it on the head and brings Baywatch into the conversation, which makes his quote all the more awesome. And if a player or team is worried about a preseason ranking, they're almost doomed to failure.
The dialogue simply doesn't matter. Was anybody hanging on the every word of The Hoff and Hobie, or were viewers at home waiting for the slow-motion shots of the Baywatch lifeguards sprinting down the beach? Don't lie, the answer is the latter.