Like training camp officially kicking off Steelers season in Pittsburgh, now that the first NCAA Football Coaches Poll has been released, it is no longer OK for your co-workers to tell you to stop talking about college football. SHOCKER: the top-three teams on the preseason poll are LSU (18 first-place votes), Alabama (20) and USC (19). LSU and Bama showed they were the best two teams in the country last year and USC seems to always end up high on preseason polls...even though they weren't ranked last year.

Pitt couldn't even get a vote though. The Big East has four coaches on the Board of Coaches (made up of 59 guys) and the Panthers couldn't even get one vote...from anyone? With a brand new coach, last year's debacle and the defense suffering major losses, we would've had a heart attack had the Panthers made the top 25, but they're at least better than Central Florida, who got 5 votes. Three teams with worse records than the Panthers last year got at least 1 vote. What the Hell?

The entire Big East got shafted from the list - not one representative in the top 25. WVU was ranked No. 11 buuut they're not in the Big East anymore. Louisville, who Pitt beat last year, came the closest with 46 votes but the Cardinals were still 20 points outside being ranked. Cincinnati received 32 votes, USF received 12 and Rutgers received 5. Those are the five teams projected to finish better than Pitt this year. As far as Pitt heading to the ACC next year, it looks like the Panthers will have stiffer competition. Three ACC teams were ranked -  Florida State (7), Clemson (14), Virginia Tech (20) - and three others received votes - Georgia Tech, NC State, Virginia. Guess the dilapidated Big East doesn't intrigue a lot of this year's coaches.