Early 2012 college football polls — setting Southern Cal up for a big fall?

Matt Hinton (aka Dr. Saturday) wrote an article on the outlook of the LSU Tigers for 2012. He remarked not only how much talent the Tigers will be losing to the NFL but also how young this 2011 team really was. Young enough to be named the Number One ranked team in the majority of early 2012 polls.

In his assessment of the polls recently published by Rivals, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, ESPN, USA Today, Athlon, CBS, SBN, The Mercury-News, and The Orlando Sentinel, Hinton averaged all of the rankings to come up with an early 2012 consensus poll. Here they are.