With the release of the AP Preseason Top 25, it finally feels like college football season is upon us.
I’ve been a pretty casual fan this offseason. I know enough to follow the headlines, but not enough to tell you who won the right guard battle in fall camp. It’s time to start digging back in.
Here are the preseason rankings:
- Ohio State
- Oregon
- Georgia
- Notre Dame
- Texas
- Indiana
- Miami
- Texas A&M
- Ole Miss
- Oklahoma
- Penn State
- Texas Tech
- LSU
- Auburn
- Alabama
- South Carolina
- SMU
- Michigan
- Houston
- Tennessee
- Iowa
- Kansas State
- Missouri
- Louisville
- Arkansas
My immediate reaction?
Yawn.
Preseason rankings don’t mean much. They’re mostly fodder for television networks and talk radio hosts who need something to debate until kickoff. They’re educated guesses at best.
My prediction is that by the middle of October, and certainly by Thanksgiving, this list will look dramatically different. And that’s exactly why college football has become such a compelling product.
We spend plenty of time complaining about NIL and the transfer portal, and not without reason. But they’ve also created something the sport desperately needed: parity.
There are simply more good teams than there used to be.
Every Saturday feels like a potential upset. Arkansas can beat Alabama. Georgia Tech can knock off Miami as a double-digit underdog. A ranked team can look unbeatable one week and completely ordinary the next.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t gamble on college football. There are just too many variables and too many talented rosters for anything to feel like a sure thing.
As much as I’ll be pulling for the Dawgs this fall, there’s a better-than-average chance Georgia loses a regular-season game. It’ll be frustrating when it happens. But they’ll also win plenty of games that remind everyone why they’re one of the nation’s elite programs.
That’s the beauty of today’s college football landscape.
The talent is spread across the country. Home-field advantage matters again. Coaching matters. Quarterback play matters. Staying healthy matters. There are very few Saturdays where you can pencil in a win before the opening kickoff.
So go ahead and argue about the preseason rankings if you want. They’ll make for good conversation over the next couple of weeks.
Just don’t get too attached to them.
The rankings that matter are the ones we see after these teams have actually played football. And judging by the way the last few seasons have unfolded, we’re in for another fall full of surprises.
Personally, I can’t wait.
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Photo: The Intelligencer
