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2017
Preseason TipTop 25
Greetings
and welcome to my third annual TipTop 25, an altogether different
approach to ranking the top 25 college football teams, at least early
in the season. What makes it so different? Well, for my preseason top
25, I have once again literally drawn names out of a hat:
Why
would I do such a thing? Because every year, there are some people who
like to gripe about the
silliness of preseason college football polls, the premise
being that no one really knows who will be good or not before the
season starts. For example, last year in the preseason AP poll, Notre Dame
was ranked #10, Mississippi #11, Michigan State #12, and Texas Christian #13, and
none
of those teams finished ranked in the final poll. Meanwhile, in the
final poll, Penn State finished #7, Wisconsin #9,
Western Michigan #15, and Virginia Tech #16, and none of those teams were ranked in the
preseason poll.
Now, I have no problem with preseason polls
myself. They're just for fun, and I enjoy looking at them. Yes, teams
that are ranked highly in the preseason AP poll may have an "unfair"
advantage in later polls, but that's only because many sportswriters
aren't very good at rating teams. That's not the fault of the preseason
poll. And while some of the preseason rankings will turn out to be
wrong, for the most part preseason polls tend to be pretty close: in 2015, an amazing 20
of that season's
preseason AP poll top 25 teams finished the season
ranked. Last year, the preseason AP poll was not nearly so accurate,
and only 14 teams from that top 25 finished ranked, but even that is a
lot more than you're likely to get by simply picking
teams out of a hat (on average, that will get you about 5 correct out
of the 25).
Still, a few years ago I got to thinking:
what if we did
simply pick teams out of a hat, and then go from there each week? And
we could treat all teams with a blank slate, ignoring their histories,
performances from last year, returning starters, etc. We would only
focus on what each team does this
year, with a completely random
ranking to start the season. Now, is this what I think people should be doing
when they rank teams early in the season? Heck no, this is just for fun.
So
for the third straight year, I've written out all the 130 FBS teams on
slips of paper, put them in a hat,
and then drawn 25 of them out one by one. Starting with my preseason #1
team for 2017:
That's
right, our preseason #1 team this year is actually defending national
champion Clemson! Much more credible than our previous preseason #1
teams, Duke in 2015 and UNLV last year. Here is the full
preseason top 25 as designated by my magic hat (which, by the way, also
designated Alabama to Slytherin House for the third straight year):
#1 Clemson
#2 Georgia Southern
#3 Mississippi
#4 Western Kentucky
#5 Utah State
#6 Texas Tech
#7 Arkansas State
#8 Temple
#9 Washington
#10 Rice
#11 Kansas State
#12 Arizona
#13 Toledo
#14 Auburn
#15 Tennessee
#16 Louisville
#17 Georgia
#18 Wisconsin
#19 Florida International
#20 Wyoming
#21 Massachusetts
#22 Louisiana
#23 Idaho
#24 Rutgers
#25 Texas State
But
I didn't stop there. In order to properly rank teams after the first
week of games, I will also need to know which teams are close to being
ranked, so I pulled
out another 25 teams to give us a top 50:
#26 Michigan
#27 Boston College
#28 Coastal Carolina
#29 Appalachian State
#30 South Carolina
#31 Oregon
#32 West Virginia
#33 Miami (Florida)
#34 Oklahoma
#35 Buffalo
#36 Central Florida
#37 Marshall
#38 Illinois
#39 Missouri
#40 Northern Illinois
#41 New Mexico
#42 Miami (Ohio)
#43 Iowa
#44 Oklahoma State
#45 Tulsa
#46 Kentucky
#47 Florida
#48 Hawaii
#49 Iowa State
#50 Baylor
Looking
Ahead to the First Week's Games
Games start
August 26, but the first full week of games will be September 2, after
which we'll start adjusting these ratings. We have 3 games featuring
teams in our top 25 the first week:
#2 Georgia Southern at #14 Auburn, #5 Utah State at #18 Wisconsin, and
#9 Washington at #24 Rutgers. There are also a bunch of games between
teams in our top 50: #29
Appalachian State at #17 Georgia, #19 Florida International at #36
Central Florida, #20 Wyoming at #43 Iowa, #48 Hawaii at #21
Massachusetts (August 26), #21 Massachusetts at #28 Coastal Carolina
(September 2), #26 Michigan vs. #47 Florida, #27 Boston College at #40
Northern Illinois, #42 Miami (Ohio) at #37 Marshall, and #45 Tulsa at
#44 Oklahoma State.
That is a whole lot of meaningful action in our top 50 for week one!
How
Last Year's Preseason Top 25 Fared
So
how did last
year's preseason top 25 fare? Awfully! This should be a good preview
for how this year's preseason top 25 teams will perform. Here is last year's preseason top 25,
along with their final record at season's end and final ranking, for
those few that finished ranked (fixed
AP poll):
#1 UNLV
|
4-8 |
#2
Northern Illinois
|
5-7 |
#3 Syracuse
|
4-8 |
#4 Colorado
|
10-4 #12 |
#5 Georgia
|
8-5 |
#6 Stanford
|
10-3 #13 |
#7 Texas
|
5-7 |
#8
Marshall
|
3-9 |
#9 Nevada
|
5-7 |
#10 Arkansas
|
7-6 |
#11 Middle Tennessee
|
8-5 |
#12 Louisville
|
9-4 |
#13 Southern Cal
|
10-3 #4 |
#14
Tulsa
|
10-3 |
#15 South Alabama
|
6-7 |
#16 Baylor
|
7-6 |
#17 Oklahoma
|
11-2 #6 |
#18 Bowling Green
|
4-8 |
#19 Georgia Tech
|
9-4 #24 |
#20 Indiana
|
6-7 |
#21 Memphis
|
8-5 |
#22 Texas State
|
2-10 |
#23 Toledo
|
9-4 |
#24
Michigan
|
10-3 #8 |
| #25 Western Michigan |
13-1 #16 |