Tag: college football top 25

Alabama ranks top 5 in latest 2024 college football power rankings

Alabama is still considered a top-5 team in college football for the upcoming 2024 season.

The upcoming 2024 season for the Alabama Crimson Tide football program will be interesting. The team may be entering a new era, as legendary head coach Nick Saban decided to retire and is replaced with former Washington Huskies head coach Kalen DeBoer, but that doesn’t mean the elite status has immediately vanished.

Under Saban, Alabama was a consistent competitor for the SEC title, a regular participant of the College Football Playoff and an annual contender for a national championship. Some believe DeBoer will have the Crimson Tide continue on that path, thanks to the solid foundation left behind by Saban, while others argue the end of Alabama’s dynasty has come.

For now, all fans can do is predict how the upcoming season will go. However, a good way to guess how a team will do is to look at expert projections based on analytics to determine the potential success of the program.

Recently, Pro Football Focus (PFF) revealed a 2024 college football power ranking (subscription required), that lists all 134 FBS teams in order from strongest to weakest based on a few important factors.

PFF used strength of schedule, projected win total, Projected chance to make a bowl game, projected chance to win their respective conference and the projected chance to win the national championship.

The Crimson Tide ranks No. 5 overall, sitting behind the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs, No. 2 Texas Longhorns, No. 3 Michigan Wolverines and No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes.

As for the factors utilized to determine Alabama’s ranking, the Tide has the 23rd most-difficult strength of schedule, a projected win total of 9.6, a 98.18% chance to make a bowl game, a 20.31% chance to win the SEC championship and a 7.44% chance to win a national title.

DeBoer is under an immense amount of pressure as head head into his first season as the head coach of the Crimson Tide. Being the immediate successor to Nick Saban comes with nearly unreachable expectations and the eyes of fans and experts examining his every move under a microscope.

The 2024 season for Alabama football begins on Aug. 31 as the Tide takes on Western Kentucky in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football news and rankings as the 2024 offseason progresses.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on X @SpurrFM. 

Where is Alabama football ranked in ESPN’s Football Power index?

Alabama football’s ranking according to ESPN’s Football Power Index may surprise fans. Do you think they are too low or too high?

The 2024 season for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team will be an interesting one. Not only is legendary head coach Nick Saban replaced by former Washington Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer, the SEC welcomes in two new teams and the College Football Playoffs expand to a 12-team format.

With such substantial changes, many wonder whether the Crimson Tide can pick up where it left off last season. Despite not being considered a national title contender for most of the season, Alabama won the SEC Championship over the Georgia Bulldogs and snuck into the CFP, where the eventual national champions, the Michigan Wolverines, got the win in the Rose Bowl.

Where will the Crimson Tide rank to begin the season? We aren’t too sure yet. However, many have tried to predict where Alabama will rank in the preseason Top 25. ESPN, however, has ranked every FBS team based on an algorithm that removes the human aspect of it all. Because of this, some argue it’s more reliable.

The ESPN Football Power Index (FPI) has Georgia ranked as the top team in the nation for the 2024 season, with a rating of 26.8, which is the highest of any team and is 2.3 points higher than the second-highest ranked team, the Oregon Ducks.

Though there are many unknowns about the 2024 Alabama football team, the FPI ranks the Crimson Tide at No. 5 with a rating of 21.9.

The regular season is rapidly approaching, which means the clock is ticking on DeBoer and his coaching staff to put together a team that will contend to win it all, which has become the standard in Tuscaloosa.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football news as the 2024 offseason progresses.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on X @SpurrFM. 

Alabama near the top in latest college football Top-25 rankings

No Saban? No problem. Alabama still ranks as one of the top teams in the nation, according to the latest college football Top-25 rankings.

The 2024 college football season is rapidly approaching, and fans are eager to watch their favorite teams take the field with a blank record, a clean slate, and a chance to make the College Football Playoffs and compete for a national championship. One team fans from across the country will have their eyes on is the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The offseason started off rough for Crimson Tide fans, as legendary head coach Nick Saban announced his retirement and the program was sent into a frenzy as the search for a replacement for the greatest of all time commenced.

Though Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne made a strong hire in former Washington Huskies head coach Kalen DeBoer, fans were concerned about his ability to fill the mighty shoes left behind by Saban and the numerous high-profile, key contributors from the Crimson Tide’s 2023 roster.

Initially losing players to the transfer portal Caleb Downs (to the Ohio State Buckeyes), Isaiah Bond (to the Texas Longhorns) and Kadyn Proctor (to the Iowa Hawkeyes… temporarily), there was fear that a mass exodus would follow.

Fortunately for DeBoer and Alabama fans, there wasn’t a steady flow of players exiting the program, and one of the three players mentioned above, Proctor, ended up transferring back to the Crimson Tide program in the spring transfer portal window.

The Tide coaching staff didn’t just suffer losses from the transfer portal, a handful of immediate starters for the program transferred in, as well as some young, talented players who could contribute in the next few seasons.

Andy Staples of On3 recently revealed his latest college football Top-25 rankings following the conclusion of the spring transfer portal. While there are a lot of drastic changes going on in Tuscaloosa, Staples isn’t convinced that it is going to lead to the program’s downfall. He has DeBoer and Alabama ranked No. 3, behind only No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs and No. 1 Ohio State.

“That first weekend felt a little touch and go, but since then Kalen DeBoer has done just about everything right as he tries to replace the greatest of all time. Nick Saban left DeBoer a pretty spectacular roster, and DeBoer added to it with some of his favorite former Washington players.

“Getting offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor back from Iowa was huge for Alabama, and while there’s no sugarcoating the loss of Downs, getting Keon Sabb from Michigan to play alongside veteran Malachi Moore should help Alabama’s secondary remain formidable.”

The 2024 regular season may prove to be challenging for DeBoer in his first season at the helm of the historic program, but iron sharpens iron, and it’s impossible to build an impressive resumé without obtaining some impressive wins.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football news and projections as the 2024 college football season approaches.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on X @SpurrFM. 

Offseason top 25 rankings give USC bulletin board material

Offseason college football top 25 rankings do not include USC. The Trojans have a point to prove.

The USC Trojans are being heavily doubted heading into the 2024 college football season. Frankly, they should be. Last year, USC was viewed as the preseason favorite in the Pac-12 and came nowhere close to winning the conference championship. Skepticism toward Lincoln Riley is a natural, logical response to 2023. The Trojans have to prove they belong among the best in the Big Ten as they prepare for 2024. Offseason top-25 college football rankings do not express any trust in USC.

College Sports Wire gathered the post-spring top-25 rankings from USA TODAY Sports, CBS Sports, ESPN, and The Athletic. That’s a collection of four prominent outlets. You can examine them for yourself, but we’ll give you the main story as it pertains to USC: The Trojans did not make the cut. They were among the “others receiving votes.”

If Lincoln Riley and USC football wanted a fresh source of motivation before the start of August preseason camp, it’s right there on a silver platter. “Us against the world” can be a manufactured rallying cry, but this time, it’s true: No one in national media circles believes in the Trojans in 2024.

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Where Clemson ranks in Athlon Sports college football way-too-early Top 25 for 2024

Here is a look at where Athlon Sports ranks Clemson football in their way-too-early Top 25 rankings.

Dabo Swinney and the Clemson football program had a solid 2023, but the team and fans did expect more out of the Tigers this past season. 

Ending their season with a 38-35 wild Gator Bowl win over Kentucky is a great end; finishing 9-4 with a 4-4 record in the ACC falls short for many. With the 2023 season behind us, the team, fans, and media move on to the 2024 season and what Clemson could look like next season. 

Clemson has the talent to be great in 2024, but a lot of development and hard work will be needed for this team to return to being a true competitor. Athlon Sports recently released their college football way-too-early Top 25 for 2024, with Clemson right in the hunt as their No.13 ranked team.

With Florida State losing a big chunk of talent from the ACC Championship team from ’23, coach Dabo Swinney’s Tigers are likely to open ’24 as the favorite to win the conference. After averaging only 23.6 points a contest in ACC play, Swinney hopes another offseason for quarterback Cade Klubnik under coordinator Garrett Riley will help to elevate the entire production of this group. Helping to ease the pressure on a developing offense is another standout defense in Death Valley. Linemen Peter Woods and TJ Parker and linebackers Wade Woodaz and Barrett Carter headline the top returners next season.

The Tigers are their highest-ranked team in the ACC, followed by Florida State (17), Louisville (23), NC State (25), Miami (26), Virginia Tech (28), and SMU (29). A lot of fringe top 25 teams in the ACC as the conference looks to compete with the SEC, BIG 12, and BIG 10.

Clemson should return to top-dog status in the ACC next season, but whether they’ll compete for the big one is up in the air.

Beat Baylor: Bears defensive scheme to test Longhorns next in Waco

Texas cannot take a win for granted against Baylor and defensive wizard Dave Aranda.

The Texas Longhorns (3-0) have reached Baylor week. And although the Bears (1-2) have only won 2 of their last 8 meetings, the team has won its last two home games against the Longhorns.

The 2021 matchup still leaves a salt-like sting in the wound for Texas. We expect veteran players could play with an edge. They will need an edge to escape with a win.

Texas comes off a 31-10 victory over Wyoming. The game felt much closer. Offensive struggles compounded the power of Wyoming’s early 62-yard touchdown run.

It’s equally true that Texas outscored Wyoming 31-3 after the Cowboys’ early touchdown drive, and the offense adjusted to win the fourth quarter 21-0.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that Texas is vulnerable to defenses that shatter tendencies in the first half. You can expect Baylor defensive coordinator to have a few changes up his sleeve for the Longhorns.

Baylor will probably make this another knockdown drag out game. Can the Longhorns adjust in time to win or, better yet, have plays that transfer to success regardless of what Baylor runs?

Texas takes on Baylor on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC.

Ducks fall in post-spring ESPN power rankings; Five Pac-12 teams in top 25

The Ducks fell several spots in ESPN’s post-spring power rankings, for some reason.

One of the more trivial things that we do in the business of covering college football is making early predictions based on very little information.

For instance, you can guarantee that the morning after the national championship game each year, there will be a litany of “Way-Too-Early Top-25 Rankings” fresh in your news feed. It’s like clockwork.

What are those rankings based on? Largely returning production and very loose expectations. At that point in time, we had no idea how most rosters were going to shape up, who was going to transfer where, which team would have the top recruiting classes, or even where all of the top head coaches in the game will ultimately be.

It’s a bit early to make legitimate predictions, but we do it nonetheless.

In May after the spring football season has come and gone, another batch of rankings comes out. That seems like a much better evaluation period, doesn’t it?

The transfer portal is closed, recruiting classes are signed, and we’ve seen a ton of spring practices and spring games. It feels like we have a much better grasp of how good the top teams in the nation are.

So how do they stack up, and more importantly, where do the Oregon Ducks rank? Let’s take a look, according to the ESPN Post-Spring Power Rankings

Predicting the future: 247Sports ranks Texas as a top five team in 2025

247Sports experts believe Texas will be ranked the No. 5 team in the country in 2025.

The hype surrounding the future of Texas’ football program is through the roof. Continue reading “Predicting the future: 247Sports ranks Texas as a top five team in 2025”

Nine top-25 teams lose on Saturday, which could help USC beyond the playoff

It started with No. 1 Tennessee, but didn’t stop there. Top-25 carnage on Saturday could help #USC for reasons not related to the playoff.

The College Football Playoff landscape just shifted drastically after Saturday’s wild slate of games.

Tennessee lost the top spot after falling to the Georgia Bulldogs (the Vols shouldn’t have been No. 1 anyway, or so one could argue). Alabama fell to LSU, and Clemson lost to Notre Dame in a series of games that will alter the next set of rankings drastically.

The USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins both won and should move up, although they might not move up all that much after not playing good games.

The new top 25 will change a lot, and it will be interesting to see how the newest CFP rankings change in a couple of days.

There is more to say about the changes in the rankings, which will affect a number of teams below the Trojans. This could mean something important for USC in the postseason, as we’ll explain below:

Georgia win over Tennessee clearly boosts Pac-12, but more help is needed

Georgia beating the Vols aids the #Pac12’s cause, but #USC needs more results for the playoff puzzle to fit. Let’s go to the scoreboard.

The Georgia Bulldogs convincingly handled the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday afternoon in Athens, smothering the Vols’ offense all day long and delivering a 27-13 win.

Follow Vols Wire for full coverage of that game.

Tennessee was No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings entering the game, while Georgia was No. 3. The Vols will fall out of the top four. Georgia should rise to No. 1 in the next rankings.

This was a good result for USC and the Pac-12, as we explained earlier in the week.

However, USC and the Pac-12 need a lot more help.

This article is being published late Saturday afternoon, before the wave of early-evening games. USC, of course, faces Cal in a late-night game.

Let’s go through some of the relevant scores for USC and the Pac-12 from Week 10’s daytime slate of games: