1. AP Preseason Top 25 College Football Poll Winners and Losers
– Winner: Sun Belt. Two teams are in the top 23. Poo poo this all you want – and I have – but your Sun Belt conference has more teams ranked in the top 25 than the rest of the Group of Five conferences combined. And it has more than the …
– Loser: Big 12. Considering Oklahoma and Texas are in the conference in body but not spirit, the Big 12 has only one top 25 ranked team – Iowa State. Oklahoma State is 26th, but this is an issue.
– Winner: Independents. The Group of Five conferences came up with a total of nine teams with a few votes. Notre Dame (9), Liberty, BYU and Army all received at least two votes – that’s more than any Gof5 league, including the …
– Loser: Mountain West. No Mountain West team was even close to getting into the top 25 – Boise State and Nevada each received seven votes – and defending champ San Jose State received as many votes as you did. The Spartans at least got 18 votes in the Coaches Poll.
– Winner: Pac-12. Oregon (11), USC (15), Washington (20), Utah (24), Arizona State (25). I’d argue that UCLA and Stanford are closer to being top 25 teams than not, but getting five teams in is a good start to a season.
– Loser: ACC. Clemson (3), North Carolina (10) and Miami (14) isn’t bad – there’s something to be said for having three teams in the top 15 – but that’s it. Worse yet, NC State and Boston College – with 14 and 2, respectively – were the only other teams to receive a vote.
– Winner: Wisconsin. 12 is a whole lot of love being given to a team coming off a slew of problems in 2020. It’s probably close to right, though, unlike …
– Loser: Northwestern. The defending Big Ten West champ comes back just as strong, and it received a grand total of eight votes – technically ranked 33rd.
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