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Last year’s king of college football is back on top of the preseason polls, as we get closer and closer to the start of the season. USAToday’s first poll of the upcoming college football season hit the stands today, and as expected, the team looking down on everybody else is the Alabama Crimson Tide. Bama received 55 first place votes, while the second-ranked team, Ohio State, received four.

Rounding out the top five are Florida, Texas, and everybody’s favorite non-automatic qualifier, upstart Boise State. The high preseason ranking makes Boise State’s road to the BCS trophy a little easier to achieve, provided they survive the Virginia Tech season opener.

As for the Tide, Nick Saban returns a powerful team, especially on the offensive side of the ball, which features eight returning starters , including Heisman trophy winner Mark Ingram. Provided the defense performs up to Saban’s standards — not a certainty, considering the turnover; but then again, that’s what all of those monster recruiting classes are for — Alabama is in a great position to repeat as BCS Champions.

Granted, they have to survive a fairly brutal schedule that includes games against Penn State, at Arkansas, a visit from a non-Tim Tebow Florida, and trips to Tennessee and LSU on back-to-back weekends. It’s safe to say if Bama finishes the season with an unblemished record, they’ll be at the top of the BCS rankings.

By a wide margin.

The question I’m left asking is, if they do win multiple championships, will Alabama build multiple Nick Saban statues?

The preseason basketball polls hit the streets today — both AP and the ESPN Coaches’ Poll — and the Kansas Jayhawks are your consensus number one team in the land heading into the 2009/10 season. With good reason, too: Bill Self’s team is loaded with talent and experience. Expectations are obviously high in Lawrence, especially after last year’s unexpected success — Kansas finished one win away from returning to the Final Four. If they can stop fighting with the football team long enough to mesh as a team, the Jayhawks will be in a position for a great season.

Rounding out the ESPN’s top 10 are the following:

1. Kansas (27)
2. Michigan State (3)
3. Texas
4. North Carolina (1)
5. Kentucky
6. Villanova
7. Purdue
8. Duke
9. West Virginia
10. Butler

The AP’s top ten doesn’t look much different from ESPN’s

1.Kansas
2.Michigan St
3.Texas
4.Kentucky
5.Villanova
6.North Carolina
7.Purdue
8.West Virginia
9.Duke
10.Tennessee

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Duke and West Virginia, although, there’s plenty of time to sort this mess out. And hey, having an actual tournament to decide who is the best in the land — a novel idea, I know — means these rankings aren’t the end all/be all, unlike, say, college football.