Preseason polls are kind of like Bill Simmons’ annual trade value column. A hell of a lot of fun to read and study and argue about but in the end mostly not that meaningful.

Well, not meaningful in the sense that they don’t really hold much weight as to who’s good and who’s not good (Auburn was #22 this time last year).

Unfortunately for the college football fan, since the NCAA is stuck somewhere between the late 70s and Doug Flutie’s BC career in terms of progressiveness, polls actually do mean something when it comes to who plays for the national title.

And that actually turns out to be a good thing for #8 (in the coaches poll) Oklahoma State this year since they only need to win twelve straight sixty minute college football games and have six teams in front of them lose once and we’ll all be dancing on Bourbon street in five months.

See the problem for OSU (and really the problem with preseason polls in general) has always been that if you don’t start high enough it’s nearly impossible to crack the top 10 or top 15 which would earn you hype and a national following which means you go to a bowl that pays a lot of money and…well you get the point.

In college negotiations classes they teach you that you need to set a base (or an “anchor”) from which to negotiate. Once you set the anchor it’s harder for me to pull you away from that spot in our arguments. The same is true for preseason polls. It’s why you have undeserving big-name teams sitting in the top 15 at the end of the season after a lackluster year – because it’s harder to move up or down no matter what you do once you’re anchored by the weight of that preseason ranking. Even though the initial ranking is based on what you did nine to ten months ago. The whole thing makes my head hurt.

Last year OSU started outside the top 25 and proceeded to outscore its opponents 297-173 in the first six games. They “rose” to #14 but still had four 1-loss teams ahead of them. If that same scenario takes place this year I can bet you whatever amount of money Dez Bryant has on him in jewelry right now OSU will not have four teams ahead of them in the polls. It’s simple math really: jumping over a large amount of teams in a poll voted on by humans is harder than jumping over a small amount of teams.

Last year they could have run the table and Mike Holder could have given Mark Emmert a lap dance and there’s a 0% chance they would have been playing for crystal in Tempe. This year though? If you go undefeated you’re absolutely playing for the title unless a.) two teams ahead of you don’t lose or b.) a team from the SEC behind you doesn’t lose.

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Editor’s note: this is the first entry into our countdown of the twenty most important people (not necessarily players) in OSU’s march towards its first national title. I’ve posted a link to all the entries on the right sidebar and we will update as we go backwards from #20 to #1. Hope you enjoy it.

Who he is: If one top-flight running back in college football is a necessity and two is a luxury then Sims represents what appears to be an embarrassment of riches for Oklahoma State this year.

He was injured for most of his senior season but in his healthy junior year he put up staggering numbers for Abilene High: 250 rushes for 2,260 yards (9.0 avg.) and 36 total TDs. For comparison’s sake Malcolm Brown, who was the number one recruit in Texas last year and subsequently took his talents to Austin, posted 298 rushes for 2,596 yards (8.7 avg.) and 30 TDs.

What he does: Sims is shorter than Randle and probably not as strong as Smith but he’s displayed a pretty good blend of each player’s respective style. He lines up really deep in the backfield, almost Adrian Peterson-like depth, which allows him to pick his running lane pretty precisely. He kind of reminds me of a smaller Ahmad Bradshaw.

Where he fits in: He is the Peyton Hillis to Randle’s and Smith’s best DMC/Felix Jones impression. Or, if you prefer, the Brandon Jacobs to their Cadillac/Ronnie Brown. He’s a different runner than those guys, but you get the point – he’s the undercard to the main event.

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In case you missed it earlier today, we looked at where Gundy stands statistically in comparison to other coaches in OSU’s history.

There are more or less 8 characteristics that make a championship-caliber division I football coach in 2011. Let’s take a look at how Gundy stacks up.

1. Controls his program – I give a ton of credit to Gundy for stripping the entire thing down early and building from scratch even if it meant going 4-7 one year removed from three straight bowls.
2. Feigns cleanliness – Do I think OSU is 100% by-the-NCAA-rule-book clean? No, and if you do then you’re delusional. But I do think Gundy has tried his best to, with honesty and integrity, keep up appearances (see: Dez/Prentiss et al.).
3. Plays CEO well – Gundy realized this somewhere between the Mizzou upset in ’08 and the Oregon game that same year. He finally figured out that to be a big time college football coach you can’t be tucked away behind the ankle taping station trying to draw Hubert Anyiam into space. It just doesn’t work like that.
4. Is an inspirational leader – I think this is where he really struggles. I mean are you fired up for this? It’s good…but not great.
5. Hire killer coaches – A+ here. I don’t know what those conversations are like (or maybe I do: “do your convenience stores sell 88 oz. Red Bulls?” “We can arrange that.”) but he’s absolutely gotten the job done.

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The short answer is yes.

The long answer is, as it usually must be, “it’s complicated.”

Let’s take a look…

Despite being only the ninth longest tenured head coach in school history (four others also coached for six years), Gundy already has the third most wins (47) and the best winning percentage of those who have coached sixty or more games.

He trails only Jim Lookabaugh (58 wins) and Pat Jones (62 wins) and will easily pass each of them by the end of the 2012 season (and might pass Lookabaugh this year). Lynn Waldorf’s record winning percentage of .735 might be the Cy Young wins total of OSU records, but it also came during an era (1929-1933) when the forward pass was frowned upon as well as those of non-Caucasian races playing this game that is now so integrated, both into our culture and by our culture.

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I’ve pored through all forty-eight combos like an absolute crazed sports fashionista over the last 24 hours trying to figure out which is my favorite. I feel like Walter White jammed into the back of his winnebago in Breaking Bad trying to find exactly the right formula for the drugs he’s making. Except I’m not doing anything illicit or illegal. Well, according to most people I’m not doing anything illicit or illegal.

I have four general rules for what a good uniform combination is and isn’t.

1. Can’t overwhelm you – Texas all whites? Good. Virginia Tech mismatching shoulder pads? VERY bad.
2. Has to be smooth – I generally like Oregon’s uniforms but I want to come through my TV screen when they try to go green on neon yellow on black on green. I shouldn’t feel like players are optical illusions.
3. Needs to pop – This is the Penn St./Alabama rule. When PSU goes white-out in Happy Valley it looks insane. Even though they have the simplest uniforms in the country they still pop in HD. This is one reason I don’t like orange on orange for OSU. It looks like Plaxico’s penitentiary friends were let loose in central Oklahoma.
4. Should make you look faster than you actually are – This was my favorite thing about going from the Miles-era uniforms to the Gundy-era ones. Whenever Josh Fields scrambled in those Miles unis it looked like he was running a 7.3 forty. They were big and clunky. The new ones were sleek and seemed to even make XLK look fast. Well…”fast.”

With that in mind, let’s get to my top 5:

#5. White | Black | White

This is essentially the inverse of what was worn up in Lawrence for the KU game last year. It satisfies rules #1 and #3 of my manifesto and the white-black-white-black with all orange trim will look terrific.

#4 Silver | Orange | Silver

Silver is still the wild card. I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to look like on the field so I might be removing this from my top 5 in about fifty days but I think the orange/silver contrast has a ton of potential. It’s like the poor man’s version of the orange/navy contrast Auburn has going on.

#3 Black | Silver | Black

I couldn’t decide between this and the all blacks but then I remembered that we went like 1-863 in the 90s for “Black Saturdays.” I think this satisfies rule #3 and maybe #4 though I could just be getting “will make you look skinny” confused with “will make you look speedy.” There should be a restraining order on my mind for what I’m thinking Justin Gilbert will do in these on kick returns.

#2 Black | White | Orange

Black shoes with white laces. That’s the next step. And I hope Dan Bailey left a Dick’s gift card behind for Quinn Sharp to pick up a pair of side-of-the-road-worker-orange kicks for this year. That tradition needs to be passed down.

#1 White | Black | Orange

These are my favorites and I don’t think it’s really that close. In fact I think these should be the de facto “we’re playing a massive game we have to win” uniforms. Though with how much this operation cost that probably won’t be happening.

Let me know what your favorite combo is in the comments below!