This is an opinion column.

Go ahead. Tell me it doesn’t matter. Take your head over your heart straight up. Tell me to stand down, back off, shut up. Take the emotion out of it, and tell me today’s AP college basketball poll isn’t worth the paper it’ll be printed on or the pixels it’ll occupy on your electronic device of choice.

Tell me it’s of no consequence if Auburn stays at No. 1 for the fourth straight week or drops from that perch after suffering its first conference loss against an elite Florida team in, of all places, the supposedly impenetrable Jungle.