Save your money on those college football mags.

Wildcat11 knows that it's that time of the year when College Football rags start pumping out their preseason issues with special regional covers and their top 25 teams. You bump around to various DIII websites and you'll see our DIII peers post up press releases about how they are in the top 25 or so and so was named an All-American by this service or that one. Some of you might ask why doesn't Catdomealumni.com mention Linfield being ranked in the top 5 in these mags top 25 polls? The answer is simple...these magazines have ZERO credibility when it comes to Division III athletics. Yeah, it's cool to have a one sentence mention in a 150 page + issue but really do these publications know anything about our division besides Mount Union? Not really.

There are only two pre-season polls that are legit. The D3football.com top 25 and USA Today's top 25 and the only reason why the USA Today Top 25 is legit is because D3football.com's publisher, Pat Coleman, is the one that puts the USA Today's poll together in the first place.

Honestly, WC11 puts zero stock into the preseason polls. They are fun for fans to look at and talk about but they mean zero, zip, nada, about what will happen during the upcoming season. There is only one poll that matters and that's the one that comes out on D3football.com and AFCA.com after the Stagg Bowl has been played.

Again, you may say "WC11, why turn your back on free pub that pumps up your program." Well, it's a matter of respect for Divsion III. Let's just look at the top 10 of Lindys' DIII 2010 pre-season pool.

1. UW-W
2. Mt. Union
3. Wesley
4. Linfield
5 Trine
6 Bethel
7 Delaware Valley
8 St. Johns
9 Wittenburg
10 UMHB

You notice a few GLARING mistakes that ANYBODY that follows DIII football should notice:

1) Where the heck is St. Thomas? That team is returning 20 out of 22 starters this season, finished 5th in the D3.com 2009 final poll, and should be a contender again in the west region. Unless the person in charge of this poll is a Saint John's grad there is no excuse for this.

2) and 3) Just what business does Bethel and Trine have in the top 10 and in the top 6? Sorry if this is mean (not really), but those two teams have no business in a pre-season top 10 for 2010.

Just that alone tells you how much effort these mags put into Division III and they are just designed to steal $10 out of your pocket. To lift a line from Mr. Coleman from D3football.com, when these publications start putting out a poll in week 2, 3, 4, etc then maybe Catdomealumni.com will start to care what these mags have to say.