This country has no patience. No wonder we Americans don’t go ga ga over soccer. Some even complain about baseball. Oh the nerve…

Predictions and assumptions are the norm today. In fact, they’re so norm it starts earlier and earlier every season, it seems. From the Heisman to the BCS contenders, it’s all in the books practically before the season starts.

Now, three games into the 2004 season and “we” already know that West Virginia isn’t good enough for a BCS berth, let alone the…gulp… national championship game.

After the squeaker over Maryland, where WVU needed overtime to beat a ranked team, all pundits jumped on the Big East favorites with both Eers…er…feet.

Lee Corso, who originally picked WVU to play for the national championship, said after the Maryland game that they looked bad and he was sorry he picked them. Well there goes a month’s sleep.

I guess it was ok for Ohio State to need a 54 yard field goal to beat a winless MAC team, or mighty Michigan to lose to a supposedly bad looking Notre Dame team. The Mountaineers are obviously the easy target this year. And we all know critiques like easy targets because they seem to like the easy way out.

The Big East isn’t expected to make big waves in the future nor do they get the feeling that they’re wanted in the BCS party.

So maybe WVU didn’t look like a top ten team against Maryland, and maybe they’re not one right now. But for the next eight weeks, they’ll never look like that? Nothing can change?

Back in the 1980s, I remember a certain Notre Dame team that was a preseason No. 1 team. The beloved Irish finished 5-6 that year. So much for opinions.

WVU was handed a lofty ranking to start the season. Well just maybe, they deserved a high mark with the talent they had coming back. Here’s a team that’s pushed Miami to the hilt two straight years while beating Virginia Tech twice along with everyone else in the Big East.

Then again, maybe they didn’t considering they got their brains beat in the last two bowl games by Virginia and Maryland.

Either way, we can find discrepancies anywhere one looks this early in the season.

Look at USC. They were handed No. 1 last year in both voter’s polls after LSU won the BCS title game. And they got the same ranking this year with key losses to graduation on offense.

Oklahoma? There wasn’t an underclassman on the projected starting 22. They got a No. 2 ranking. Not bad but for all that’s coming back, they should be the team to beat, hands down.

Ohio State, which keeps on winning just like they did when they were loaded, got a preseason top ten ranking. I can’t see them even finishing in the top ten, let alone playing for the title.

What’s perplexing is that these pundits are not even looking at the possibilities. A game in Blacksburgh awaits WVU and Tech could very well be 3-1.

Boston College is already 3-0 with road games at Wake Forest, Pitt and Notre Dame. Not overwhelming opponents, which could mean an 8-0 team invading Morgantown on Nov. 13.

Right now, WVU is looking at three bowl opponents on their schedule. If one more could pop up, that isn’t a bad resume for a top ten team. We’ve all seen worse, haven’t we?

There are two ways to look at the rankings. One is, if you’re ranked high, then you have to earn that ranking. If you’re ranked low, then you’ve got to show the country you’ve been cheated out of a better ranking.

Either way, it should be up to the teams themselves, not these impatient know-it-alls that sound like that bird that crows outside your bedroom window, right before you reach for the BB gun.

Filed by J.D. Long