University of New Hampshire football coach Sean McDonnell and his players never have put much stock in pre-season polls.

They aren’t about to start worrying about them now, for a pretty good reason.

“I don’t really pay attention to those,” said senior running back and co-captain Dontra Peters on Wednesday morning from the Colonial Athletic Association’s Media Day in Baltimore. “Last year, Towson wasn’t picked to be first. Anything can happen. We’ve just got to understand that you have to work hard and any team on the list can be first at the end of the year.”

For what it is worth, Towson was picked to finish first in the poll of coaches and team media personnel that was announced on Wednesday. The Tigers received 12 first-place votes.

UNH was picked fourth, just like last year, and was first on two ballots.

In between them Old Dominion was picked second with seven first-place votes and James Madison was third with one.

Towson is Exhibit A on the folly of pre-season polls. Old Dominion is Exhibit B.

Towson, coming off a 1-10 overall record and 0-8 mark in the league in 2010, not surprisingly was picked to finish last among the 11 CAA teams last year.

The Tigers went 9-3 overall and won the league championship with a 7-1 record.

ODU, after being picked 10th, put up the best overall record in the league at 10-3 and joined UNH and Maine with 6-2 records in the CAA.

New Hampshire, Towson, Old Dominion, James Madison and Maine, which was picked No. 9 in the pre-season poll, all advanced to the 20-team Football Championship Subdivision payoffs.

The Wildcats have gone to the national tournament eight consecutive years, which is the longest such streak in the nation.

One of this season’s goals is to run that stretch to nine.

“Obviously we want to win the CAA,” said senior linebacker and captain Matt Evans, who joined McDonnell and Peters in Baltimore. “But the biggest goal is we want to keep improving. It’s the last year for me and personally I want the defense to improve on last year and I think we’ll be able to do that. And eventually we want to get to the national championship game in Frisco.”

The FCS season ends with a title game in Frisco, Tex., on Jan. 5.

Evans, who won UNH’s first Buck Buchanan Award as the best defensive player in all of FCS last season, was named the CAA’s defensive pre-season player of the year.

UNH’s top priority when pre-season camp begins next Thursday is getting a quarterback ready for the season opener five weeks from tonight at Holy Cross.

For the first time in a decade, the Wildcats go into a season without a quarterback who has played in a pressure situation.

Senior James Brady has a slight edge on sophomore Andy Vailas, a sophomore out of Bedford and Bishop Guertin, and redshirt freshman Sean Goldrich, but all will get their chance and a very close look in the pre-season, McDonnell said.

McDonnell, incidentally, did agree with the choices of Towson, Old Dominion and James Madison at the top of the charts going into the season.

“I think they’re pretty good and I guess everyone else thinks the same thing I do,” he said. “They’re the cream of the crop based on the kids they have coming back. All three of them are very athletic and the thing all three of them can do is run the football. They can run the football and keep offenses off the field and you go from there.”

Towson, led by freshman Terrance West, led the league in rushing at 229.9 yards a game last season. James Madison was right behind at 222.5 and ODU was third in the league at 168.2.

West carried 23 times for 261 yards and four touchdowns in a 56-42 win over UNH late last season at Towson.

UNH closes out the regular season against Towson at home in Cowell Stadium on Nov. 11.

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Old Dominion, Georgia State and Rhode Island have all announced they are leaving the CAA after this season. ODU (to Conference USA) and Georgia State (Sunbelt) are moving up a step to the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

URI is reducing scholarships and staying in FCS in the Northeast Conference.

The moves leave the league at eight teams for football and conference officials have said they prefer to have at least nine teams, giving each team eight league games. An announcement concerning expansion is expected before the end of the summer.

Speculation has mounted that Albany is likely to leave the Northeast Conference and join the CAA for football and that perhaps Stony Brook, currently playing in the Big South Conference, is headed to the league for football as well.

UNH director of athletics Marty Scarano has said that he hopes Rhode Island might reconsider and stay in the CAA, too.

Furman, Elon, Coastal Carolina, the College of Charleston and Davidson have also been mentioned as potential league members.

Allen Lessels covers UNH athletics for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.