It has taken more years than I care to admit, but I’ve finally concluded preseason football polls are an absolute joke.

There’s simply no other way to describe them.

So it’s time to abolish preseason polls, starting with the 2008 college football season. It should be absolutely clear to everyone who studies those polls that they’re worthless. The first month of the college football season proved that.

We’re only in the first week of October, and only three unbeaten teams remain from the Associated Press preseason top 10.

Study further, and you’ll find 17 of the preseason Top 25 that already have lost a game.

Ridiculous.

Among top-10 teams from the preseason poll, No. 3 Michigan has lost twice, and No. 10 Louisville has lost three times.

Michigan opened the season with a humiliating loss to Division I-AA power Appalachian State, and Louisville has one of the worst defenses in college football, but the pollsters believed they were two of the nation’s elite programs.

Still, I wasn’t ready to concede that the polls were worthless until last week, when five of the nation’s top 10 teams lost.

Close to home, No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 7 Texas were double-digit favorites, yet lost to Colorado and Kansas State, respectively. At least OU was on the road. Texas lost by 20 points at home. No. 4 Florida, No. 5 West Virginia and No. 10 Rutgers also went down.

There’s more.

Boston College, South Florida and Kentucky all were unranked to start the season. Now, each is ranked among the top 10.

There’s more parity than ever in college football, making preseason polls obsolete. The polls punish teams like South Florida, Boston College and Kentucky that weren’t even ranked to start the season.

All South Florida has done is beat Auburn on the road and West Virginia at home. Now the Bulls are ranked sixth and positioned for the Bowl Championship Series.

Even if South Florida goes undefeated, it won’t climb high enough in the polls to be a factor in the BCS championship game.

Stop chuckling.

After what Boise State did to OU last season, can you just assume without equivocation that USC or LSU would drill South Florida? I don’t. Not anymore.

How much more evidence do we need to demand that the AP do away with its preseason poll?

Here’s a history lesson: When the AP poll began in 1936, the first poll always came out in early October after teams had played two or three games. And it stayed that way until 1950, when the first preseason poll appeared.

It’s time to go old school.

There’s too much parity and too much roster turnover each season to accurately gauge how teams are going to perform from one year to the next.

As a graduate of The Ohio State University, I cheer unabashedly for the Buckeyes. But NFL teams drafted their quarterback (fifth round), two starting receivers (both first round) and star running back (fourth round). How in the world could they be ranked No. 11 in a preseason poll?

They’ve moved up to No. 4 because they’re unbeaten against a schedule composed of cupcakes. It’ll be another month before I find out if they’re any good.

So let’s not have a Top 25 poll until sometime in mid-October, when every school has played five or six games. By then, the pretenders have lost a game or two while other teams have upset some of college football’s big boys.

Then we can have a poll with substance.