Coaches’ Poll doing Coaches’ Poll things

LSU is No. 1 in the 2012 preseason Coaches’ Poll, and one of five SEC teams in the top 10. (Getty Images)

Gird those irony loins and outrage glands for the release of the first USA Today “Coaches’” Poll of the 2012 season, so named because the sports information directors and other overworked athletic department employees who actually put the ballots together work in the same buildings as football coaches. Five SEC schools made the top 10:

1. LSU (18)
2. Alabama (20)
3. USC (19)
4. Oklahoma
5. Oregon
6. Georgia
7. Florida State
8. Michigan
9. South Carolina
10. Arkansas

The full list is available here, and should provide plenty of lunchtime sniping material. Georgia at six is clearly a function of the schedule, PAAAOWL! Texas is only ranked because it’s Texas, whatever-the-Big-12-equivalent-of-PAAAOWL-is! And Boise State can’t get any respect in 2012, even in imaginary preseason polls, world without end, amen.

Just for fun, we conducted a brief Twitter survey before publishing this post, asking our followers how many coaches they thought filled out their own ballots. Answers ranged from “The ones on a bye week maybe,” to “30%, but none of them actually watch any games before doing so,” to “Randy Edsall for one, who sure ain’t doing nothing else.”