Alabama is once again the top-ranked team in college football following Monday’s release of the preseason AP Top 25 Poll. But that doesn’t mean that teams aren’t knocking at the door, with a Big Ten team, in particular, the most likely to topple the Crimson Tide from the top spot.
ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum said that “Unquestionably” the best chance to knock off Alabama comes from Ohio State. The Buckeyes are second in the AP poll and received six first-place votes.
(Alabama got 54, for what it is worth).
With a season opener at home against No. 5 Notre Dame, Finebaum thinks that it could be Ohio State who is most likely to be the top team in the country. Finebaum made his points on Tuesday morning on ESPN’s Get Up show.
“But Ohio State is built for this. They had a bad year last year, they did the unthinkable – the once in a generation – they lost to Michigan,” Finebaum said.
“But that’s not going to happen this year. They have one of the best quarterbacks in the country, they have wide receivers that will fill the NFL up and they have Notre Dame at home in the first game of the season. They have Michigan later on.
“It’s a tailor-made schedule for Ryan Day to make a serious run at the championship.”
Now, it is important to note that the highly-regarded Finebaum doesn’t necessarily think that Alabama is going to lose or not be the top team in the polls. But were the vaunted SEC program to topple from its perch, he believes that it is Ohio State who is primed to ascend.
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Last year, Michigan beat Ohio State in the final week of the regular season to book their spot in the Big Ten Championship Game, which they won. They lost to Georgia in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff.
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Ohio State finished the regular season 11-2 and beat Utah in the Rose Bowl.
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