Good prep rankings hard to find, harder to compile.

Byline: Commentary by Steve Mims The Register-Guard

IF YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE people who finds fault with each week's college football rankings, you probably want to stay away from the national prep rankings altogether.

If it's tough to pick the top 25 out of 117 college teams, imagine the degree of difficulty in picking out the top 50 prep football teams in the nation. It's a task that Doug Huff has taken on for 15 years, including the last three years when he has teamed with Mark Tennis to put together the Fab 50 football rankings for Student Sports Magazine/Student Sports.com.

"We do the best we can, we take it seriously and spend time and effort on this," Huff said. "It is not a whim. We are not just throwing darts."

It is obviously impossible for Huff and Tennis to get out and see more than a handful of the teams they are ranking, but they have help in each region. States are split into five regions, and Student Sports has five to 10 people in each region who give feedback to Huff and Tennis.

"One person can't do this. I can't sit down here where I am based and make all those judgement calls," said Huff, who is based in West Virginia. "You have to have a good network of people who are in tune locally. Somebody has to see them play, and that is what I have learned working with this stuff. You need good local input."

However subjective the poll might be, it has drawn interest locally because Sheldon has been included all season. The Irish opened the season ranked 49th and moved up to 37th in the nation last week.

"Sheldon came out and emerged from Day 1 having a close game with Beaverton, which looks like it is the second-best team in Oregon," Huff said of Sheldon's 31-28 overtime win over the Beavers on Aug. 31.

Is Sheldon really the 37th-best prep football team in the country? Who knows? They might be better than that, or they might be worse.

I think it might be possible to rank the top five to 10 teams in the nation because there probably is a gap between the perennial national powers and the rest of the nation. Once you get past the top 10 or so, I think it becomes impossible to compare and contrast schools.

The lack of cross-state matchups makes football one of the most difficult sports to rank nationally.

"It is more difficult to rank football teams than basketball teams because there are more reference points in basketball," Huff said. "In basketball there are more tournaments, and California teams travel to play in Oregon, and Oregon teams travel to Nevada. We can weigh all that. Football is a little tougher."

The most recognizable prep rankings are from USA Today, which has put out the Super 25 for 20 years. Comparing the rankings from USA Today and Student Sports, there are a lot of similarities at the top.

Both polls have De La Salle of Concord, Calif., which has a 129-game winning streak, ranked No. 1. Long Beach (Calif.) Poly and Parkview of Lilburn, Ga. are ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, by USA Today, while Student Sports has those two flip-flopped.

There are also some discrepancies, as Student Sports ranks Harding of Warren, Ohio, 10th in the nation, but the Raiders are not a part of the USA Today Super 25.

Miami Central is ranked fourth by USA Today and 27th by Student Sports.

(Once again referencing college football, can you imagine the uproar that would come from Virginia Tech fans if the Hokies, ranked fourth in the Associated Press poll, were ranked 27th in the coaches poll?)

As difficult as it is now to rank thousands of football teams across the country, it was an even greater challenge in 1987 when Huff began doing a national poll that was distributed by The Associated Press.

"When I started, it was me, a phone and about 35 prep writers from across the country providing information," Huff said.

"Now if I am missing a score or I can't find a correspondent somewhere, I can click on the Internet to find the information. There are more tools now to cover your bases."

That doesn't necessarily mean the rankings are easier to compile.

Consider that Evangel Christian of Shreveport, La., was ranked No. 3 in the preseason by Student Sports and is now 45th.

Three schools ranked in the preseason top six - Palm Bay of Melbourne, Fla, Jenks (Okla.) and Ben Davis of Indianapolis - are not only out of the top 50, they are not even ranked in the top 15 of their region anymore.

Still, Huff points out that his track record isn't necessarily any worse than some more notable prognosticators.

"People say `How credible is it?' ' Huff said.

"Well, I just picked up the Sports Illustrated NFL preview, and they picked the Rams and Steelers to play in the Super Bowl. The Rams are 0-5 and the Steelers are 1-3, so how credible is anyone else?"

Steve Mims writes about prep sports for The Register-Guard. He can be reached at [e-mail].