Especially since basically every team looks drastically different than the year before, with incoming freshmen and graduated seniors. It's a total guess, and year after year, it's proven to be not even close to reality. That's why the games are played. The only thing that preseason rankings actually accomplish is creating narratives of team/conference supremacy (the SEC being by far the biggest beneficiary) that are difficult to challenge, even when the games are being played.

If we want to have them because they're fun to talk about, then great. Let that be the reason. But there is no logical reason to rank teams before they have demonstrated anything as opposed to a few weeks into the season when there is SOME body of work. Not only do preseason rankings not make any logical sense, but they probably hurt the actual integrity of the rankings, at least to some degree, throughout the season.