The Eastern football team has already received plenty of accolades before taking its first snap, but the players aren’t about to brag about it.

The Panthers are ranked as high as No. 4 and no lower than eighth in the preseason Division I-AA polls. The team was picked to finish first in the Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll with 11 first-place votes.

Senior quarterback Tony Romo, who has already received plenty of recognition as the preseason favorite for the Walter Payton Award, doesn’t care about any of that.

“I’m not worried about any of that,” Romo said. “If we play well as a team all of that stuff will take care of itself. Last year already showed that.”

The Panthers were in a similar situation last year after earning NCAA playoff berth in 2000. Senior running back J.R. Taylor said he’s proud of his team’s rank, but isn’t about to shout it from the mountain tops.

Instead, it’s a rallying point.

“It’s great to be on a team that’s up there so high and it makes practices go a little better,” he said. “It’s hard to say we’re having a bad practice when you’re ranked No. 13 or whatever it is in the nation. Teams that are at that level don’t have bad practices. So it gets us going a little bit.”

Taylor and junior running back Andre Raymond, who is back at full strength after an injury sidelined him for the second half of last season, bragged they were the best running back tandem in the country last season.

Taylor is still singing the same tune.

“We feel like we can go toe-to-toe with just about anyone,” Taylor said. “The only time we’d feel like we couldn’t win a game is if we were up against a Florida State-type of team or a Miami.”

And head coach Bob Spoo has tools in place to keep those egos at an even keel.

“If they respect each other as teammates – we’re all in this together and we all depend on each other – so that closeness is important,” he said. “It’s something we really strive for.”