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It is some sportswriters not the people.  

It is some sportswriters not the people. 

But a strong consensus

But a strong consensus

In what sense?  A select and small group forming a "strong consensus" is simply not representative of "the people" except by chance.  

Everyone here understands the purpose of preseason polls and this entire thread disparages such things in general.  This year "they" were pretty spetacularly wrong (so far), usually they aare more in the "OK" range when it comes to a top ten or so.  If there were a poll of say 10,000 "fans" we could lable it as the voice of the people, perhaps, though that too would be about as wrong.  None of us own some crystal ball, we're all guessing.

I'd make a small wager that a poll of frequent posters here would be better, but far from perfect, or even close.  I think most here including me figured this was THE year for PSU and Texas, without any influence from preseason polls.  "We" wouldn't have done a LOT better even before any public poll was released.

Many polls are pretty silly, this is just another example of one.

In what sense?  A select and small group forming a "strong consensus" is simply not representative of "the people" except by chance. 

Everyone here understands the purpose of preseason polls and this entire thread disparages such things in general.  This year "they" were pretty spetacularly wrong (so far), usually they aare more in the "OK" range when it comes to a top ten or so.  If there were a poll of say 10,000 "fans" we could lable it as the voice of the people, perhaps, though that too would be about as wrong.  None of us own some crystal ball, we're all guessing.

I'd make a small wager that a poll of frequent posters here would be better, but far from perfect, or even close.  I think most here including me figured this was THE year for PSU and Texas, without any influence from preseason polls.  "We" wouldn't have done a LOT better even before any public poll was released.

Many polls are pretty silly, this is just another example of one.

Yeah, you're going way overboard on this.  The ad populum fallacy doesn't just refer to the masses, but the dominant % of any smaller population.
As in poll voters.  
As in Texas and Penn State got 47 of 65 preseason #1 votes.  

You're deep-diving in a swimming pool, friend.

I don't think the "sportswriters" colluded on this, phoning each other to find out how each might vote.  

There was a consensus among "experts", including many here, that Texas and PSU would be top five material this year.  It happens, fairly rarely, that there are two such misses in preseason polls.  It's also possible both or one team recovers and goes 10-2.  PSU looks like a poser, to me, after that loss.  Texas I think is still a pretty good team.

I don't know of an 'expert' anywhere who thought Texas and PSU would fall this far this early.  Why is that?  Because both had every normal metric suggesting they would be very good.

Texas played Ohio State within one score on the road, they could still be a solid team.  Losing at Florida happens, and Florida isn't a terrible team (not UCLA).  I'd probably have Texas ranked at this point, maybe 20, not that it matters.  Time will tell.

I won't be at all shocked if UGA loses at Auburn this weekend.  UGA has almost no pass rush, which is rather odd, to me.