This week will be one of the more popular weeks during the offseason for my daily blog as it will feature my projection of what the AP Preseason Top 10 will be for next season.

Every year I am particularly intrigued by who is placed in the preseason AP Top 10 as I try to predict what those teams will be shortly after the previous season is completed.

Most AP voters usually look at a couple of criteria when they evaluate a team for the upcoming season. First they look at the number of returning starters that the team has coming back particularly at the offensive skill positions.

Another factor that is heavily weighted is the performance of the team in the bowl game, which undoubtedly is the lasting image of that team in the offseason. A team coming off a huge bowl win usually is more highly thought of than a team that is coming off a bowl loss regardless of what their schedule looks like for the upcoming season.

Using these criteria and a few more, I project the preseason AP Top 10 every year at the conclusion of the previous season, which in most cases is nearly 7 months in advance. Now as you all know, a lot can happen from January to August.

Last year way back in a  February Blog, I projected the preseason AP Top 10 would be #1 Alabama, #2 Ohio St, #3 Boise St, #4 Oregon, #5 Texas, #6 TCU, #7 Iowa, #8 Florida, #9 Nebraska and #10 Virginia Tech.

The actual AP Top 10 which came out was #1 Alabama, #2 Ohio St, #3 Boise St, #4 Florida, #5 Texas, #6 TCU, #7 Oklahoma, #8 Nebraska, #9 Iowa and #10 Virginia Tech.

For the second year in a row I nailed nine of the ten teams that appeared in the Preseason Top 10 and I will have this year’s projection later on this week.

In 2009, I started a weekly blog that included my surprise fantasy picks for each week of the college football season. Each week I picked the players that were flying under the radar and this past year I continued my weekly surprise fantasy picks. Overall on the season I finished 103-45-17 (70%) and had a winning week each and every week! I think 70% is not so bad when you consider I could not take players like Kellen Moore, LaMichael James and Cam Newton each and every week.

Today’s blog will feature some of the top fantasy players for the upcoming 2011 season courtesy of my friends at CollegeFootballGeek.com who helped provide me with their weekly player rankings during the course of the college football season that helped me pick some of the surprise players.

Here are their first set of rankings for the upcoming season!