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2024 College Football Rankings: Preseason AP Poll Reaction - Underrated, Overrated & Disrespected Teams
By Pete Fiutak,
1 day ago
Welcome to the 2024 college football season.
For someone like me who does college football stuff every waking moment 365 days a year, this is it. The preseason Coaches Poll matters and acts like an appetizer, but when the preseason AP Top 25 poll comes out ...
GAME ON.
Of course, the College Football Playoff rankings are now the ones of record, and they don't come out until late October. But for now, we're here, and here's the first reaction to the AP Top 25.
Jul 24, 2024; Indianapolis, IN, USA; USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley speaks to the media during the Big 10 football media day at Lucas Oil Stadium
- It was a bit predictable considering the AP and Coaches preseason polls are usually close to alike, but I thought the AP types would've liked Texas just a wee bit more.
Texas is 4 in both polls, Oregon 3, and overall the top seven - Georgia 1, Ohio State, 2, Oregon 3, Texas 4, Alabama 5, Ole Miss 6, Notre Dame 7 - are the same in both. BUT ...
- Call this the Michigan punishment. Coaches - or the administrators who vote in the Coaches Poll tend to not get into a twist in the rankings and they play it straight. There are far fewer votes in the Coaches Poll. More voters, more opinions, more grudges, more ... Michigan is 9 in the AP, 8 in the Coaches. But overall ...
- Yeah, there's nothing really here that's different from the Coaches Poll. All of the same 25 teams in the coaches poll are in the AP Top 25. NC State is 22 in the Coaches, 24 in the AP, and Kansas is 24 in the Coaches, 22 in the AP. That's about as wacky as the AP voters got.
- So how does this all look in the new world of college football expansion? How many teams from each conference would be in? It's the same for the AP Top 25 poll as it is for the Coaches Poll.
If this was 2023 SEC 7 ACC 5 (counting ND) Big 12 5 Big Ten 4 Pac-12 4 Group of Five 0 2024 SEC 9 Big Ten 6 ACC 5 (counting ND) Big 12 5 Group of Five 0
Overrated teams in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll
I'll try to be different from the analysis from the preseason Coaches Poll since the teams are roughly the same in both. For the Coaches version I had Kansas State (17), SMU (29), and Liberty (35). I'll go more micro here starting with ...
Oregon (3) It's the shiny team that was really close to doing something important last season, but it gets lost that it didn't actually beat anyone who was any good - that includes Liberty. The Ducks should be around 6ish, or at least 4 behind Texas.
Notre Dame (7) Great team, should be in the top eight of the final College Football Playoff rankings, and it'll probably lose to Texas A&M (20) to start the season. Losing rising star OT Charles Jagusah to a knee injury matters.
Kansas (22) To sound like Bud Fox, liked it at 24 in the Coaches Poll, hate it at 22. Kansas should be fine this year, and it's about how good the team is an this isn't supposed to be predictive, but it doesn't have a true road game and is should be more around the mid-to-low 20s, high 30s.
Underrated teams in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll
Again, going WAY nitpicky here since the teams are roughly the same in both main preseason polls. Had Arizona (21), Washington (26), and Louisville (27) here in the Coaches version. Ohio State (2) I'm going highest of high-rent district, beyond First World problem, diamond on the soles of the shoes thing here ... talent-wise, Ohio State should've at least received more than 15 first place votes (Georgia received 46).
USC (23) I'm not going too hard to the rim on this, but I held off when USC was ranked 23rd in the Coaches Poll so I'll go with it here. It's still USC, the defense will be a bit better, and overall it should be closer to the top 15 than out of the Top 25.
NC State (24) The defense should be among the best in the ACC, Grayson McCall was a huge get at quarterback, and despite years of years of being a high-end also-ran, this year's team might really be a challenger for the ACC title.
5 Ranked teams that might finish out of the final AP Poll Top 25
It's about schedules, records, and who each team has to deal with. Again, to change this up from the Coaches Poll version (Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, USC - I know, it's in the Underrated portion of this program - and Clemson) ...
1. Miami (19) 2. Missouri (11) 3. Iowa (25) (Fully aware I just said the preseason ranking is Underrated) 4. Texas A&M (20) 5. Arizona (21)
5 Unranked teams that will probably finish in the final AP Poll Top 25
Basically, what teams will have shiny records to get into the last top 25? (At least in the regular season.)
In the Coaches Poll version I had Memphis, Boise State, Virginia Tech, Liberty, and Appalachian State. So to go with a different five ...
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