This week, revered college football prognosticator Phil Steele learned that Amazon was selling AI knockoffs of his eponymous preseason magazine. Truly nothing is sacred anymore.I would be curious, though, to see if “Phil’s” ChatGPT-generated preseason rankings prove more accurate than the preseason AP and coaches polls.Can you remember another year where the preseason top 6 teams could be shuffled in any order, and all resulting permutations of rankings could be easily justified? — Barney G.I’d extend it to seven, and no, not any time recently. Keep in mind, there was an entire decade (2013-22) when Alabama was No. 1 six times and No. 2 or 3 the rest of the time. And when it wasn’t them, it was a team that either won or played in the national championship game the year before. Then Georgia inherited that overwhelming No. 1 mantle in ’23 and ’24.Last preseason was the first where I felt parity creeping in. But not in a good way. Texas, Ohio State and Penn State were a close top three, but I wasn’t enamored with any of them. I reluctantly picked the Longhorns as my national champion, but it was kind of a “someone has to win it” choice.This season feels completely different.I was mildly surprised the coaches had Ohio State No. 1, only because Oregon and Texas seem to be getting more hype, but I’m excited about all three, as well as Notre Dame, Indiana and Miami. (I’m not as high on Georgia as the coaches.) All seven teams have experienced quarterbacks, and all of them either enjoyed good retention (Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, Georgia) or brought in a portal class that could be considered an upgrade (Texas, Indiana, Miami).Of course, this being college football, at least a couple of them will flop, and I’ll look like an idiot in a couple of months for ever being so high on them. And there will be at least a couple of tiers below this group that emerge as legitimate national title teams. But the fact that I find that group largely interchangeable as of today tells me this could be a highly entertaining season.