Chicago ? Most of us are clueless when it comes to predictions, wouldn’t you agree?

That includes the “experts” out there who amaze and amuse us on a regular basis with the depth of their football knowledge and insight.

Case in point: A prediction as bad as any in the history of predictions, made on national TV by ESPN’s “College GameDay” analyst, that sage of sages, Mr. Lee Corso.

He picked California to win the national championship.

Rarely, if ever, has a pick so quickly blown up in a guy’s face like a shotgun improperly loaded by Elmer Fudd. Cal couldn’t even win its first game.

I can’t recall the last time a team’s drive for the national title lasted, oh, roughly 61 minutes. (Sixty minutes of football and 60 seconds more to “let it sink in,” as the jocks love to say.)

Corso climbed out on a limb. So did my old pal Tim Kawakami, a normally astute San Jose columnist who joined Corso out on that cracking branch.

He wrote: “Let lightning strike if necessary. Cal will beat Ohio State by a touchdown in the BCS title game Jan. 8 to finish 13-0, pristine, jubilant and crowned.”

Tennessee beat the jubilation out of the Golden Bears, 35-18, freeing their calendar on Jan. 8, 2007, to watch the BCS title game on TV.

Expectations … don’t you love ’em?

You know what I mean.

Like when a new season begins and the “experts” size up how good each team is, even though no one has set foot on a field.

In this infinite wisdom, Texas gets stuck with a rank of No. 3 in the polls, even though the Longhorns won the national championship game to end up a dead solid perfect, indisputable No. 1.

And who gets ranked No. 2, ahead of them?

Why, if it isn’t the good old Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, who got their golden domes handed to them in their last game, the Fiesta Bowl.

Yep, I’m sure everybody in Texas understands and agrees with that.

(And that cows can fly.)

Predictions are fun, but rankings are not. Rankings are serious. They have a direct impact on which teams get to be in the big bowl games and which ones go to the Capital One Humanitarian Outback Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Anyhow, now that the Cal Golden Bears’ bid to be the No. 1 team in America is toast till 2008, let’s look back on the other highlights, lowlights and lightning bolts of last week’s NCAA football kickoffs:

Central Michigan coach Brian Kelly called for a goofy “swinging gate” with the Boston College game on the line. With 1 minute 30 seconds to play, the Chippewas’ center and quarterback lined up on a far hash mark. The other nine guys stayed put at midfield.

It fooled nobody.

Colorado, a school that – correct me if I’m wrong – used to know how to play football, lost its last four games of last season by a cumulative 149-32.

It tanked this year’s opener to Montana State, a team from teeny-weeny Division I-AA.

I predict that Montana State, like Cal, could turn out to be the No. 1 team in America.

Just not in my lifetime.