Is making the USC Trojans the preseason college football favorites just a case of inertia? They had to settle for the Rose Bowl again last year after going 10-2 (6-6 against the spread). Now they’re changing starting quarterbacks – again – and yet they were 3-1 favorites earlier this summer to win the 2009 BCS Championship game.

Perhaps those odds will change before long; the NCAAF futures market was down at press time. Pete Carroll’s USC program is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but the Trojans aren’t getting as much attention this preseason as teams like the Georgia Bulldogs and Ohio State Buckeyes, both of whom were 6-1 before the odds came off the board.

My pick out of what promises to be a very tough field: OSU. The Buckeyes saw their Big Ten rivals crumble around them last year; we’ll see roughly the same in 2008 as Ohio State plows its way to another one-loss season and a championship.