Preseason Coaches Poll Released
Posted on: July 31, 2014
USA Today Pre-Season Coaches Poll is out today. Below is the top 25.
1. Florida State – makes sense, returning champs
2. Alabama – breaking in a new QB and a new OC and with losses over OU and Auburn I would have thought they’d be a little lower. At least below OU. But whatevs.
3. Oklahoma – gotta preemptively give y’all the classic “don’t care where we start out, it’s where we end up”. But still…Never Forget the Sugar Bowl!
4. Oregon – Mariota and some nice pieces back on defense. Still feel like people underestimate the loss of Chip Kelly.
5. Auburn – Can’t lie…love me some Malzahn. And I know the coaches in Alabama do too. I think they’ll feel the loss of Tre Mason. And I think losing Carl Lawson was big. He flashed some real pass rush ability last year.
6. Ohio State – They’ve got some nice talent on the defensive line with Bosa and Spence. Would have though Adolphus Washington would have made a bigger jump. Going to be interested to see if Braxton Miller takes that sudden next step.
7. UCLA – I won’t lie. I don’t follow UCLA much. But my gut says they are way too high at 7.
8. Michigan State – These guys picked up Tyler Higby earlier today and CB Josh Butler out of Mesquite a week or so ago. They are recruiting the RIGHT guys and getting some pretty darn good talent.
9. South Carolina – At SEC media days, Spurrier seemed confident in the defense so I’ll defer to him but as an outside spectator looking at it from afar I would have thought there’d be some concerns with all those big losses on the DL.
10. Baylor – gonna smash em this year and I can’t wait.
11. Stanford – Don’t know much about their personnel but I know that they have the timeless qualities need for success…always disciplined and always physical.
12. Georgia – I think they’re going to see we’re going to see their defensive discipline match their defensive talent under the new DC, Pruitt. And they’ve got a couple nasty RBs. If they’re QB can actually play I think Georgia may be a sleeper.
13. LSU – Usually pay some attention to LSU but haven’t really looked at them much this year. They lost a lot of talent but don’t they always? They still manage to put some studs on the field. They’ve got a simple scheme from a great defensive play caller in Chavis. They change up their pressure points and keep the back end fairly simple. It’s the right recipe in college football and is what coach Mike brought to OU. And LSU has guys like coach Raymond and coach Haley that develop talent really well.
14. Wisconsin – don’t know enough about them.
15. USC – USC always has talent but the coaching as of late has always been the question. A lot of recruits in that area are waiting to see what happens with USC. I’m the same. People just assumed that southern cal’s talent pool was enough to carry them no matter who the coach was. But Carroll was legit! My gut feeling is Sarkisian isn’t that guy. He feels like a guy who is going to have them playing not good enough to win an NC but too good to let go.
16. Clemson – Great offensive play caller but we’re gonna find out if they’re like Baylor and can just keep reloading the QB position because Boyd was there for a minute!
17. Notre Dame – The return of Everett Golson! I don’t reckon he enjoyed his last memories on a football field.
18. Arizona State – Interesting how good their name brand is despite accomplishing very little. They’re in the top 25 despite losing by two TDs to Texas Tech (who is no where to be found in the top 25 by the way) at the end of last season.
19. Ole Miss – With Wallace back and some really good young talent I think they might have actually been a little higher if not for the fact that they’re in the toughest division in the country.
20. TAMU – One of the most dominant off-season teams ever. No miracle man at the helm anymore so the offense takes a step back in my opinion. But I don’t care about the offense. I want to see if they’ve made any progress on defense. They’d need some significant progress just to be bearable to watch on that side of the ball.
21. Kansas State – The coaches obviously respect coach Snyder. Always well coached and they’ve got some pieces with Lockett, Waters, and Mueller.
22. Nebraska – Don’t know much about Nebraska just yet…but I know they’ve got a heck of a DE in Randy Gregory!
23. North Carolina – Don’t follow UNC at all.
24. Texas – The QB situation is still not good but the defense should be much more disciplined. I think they could struggle with depth at certain positions…especially with coach Strong booting so many players.
25. Washington – Very interested in seeing how coach Peterson does here.
79 Comments
I wasn’t going to insult anyone’s intelligence by making a post re: a poll that is now completely irrelevant b/c of the CFB playoff, but K took a much different approach and made it something actually worth reading.
It’s not completely irrelevant. We’ll still hear a lot about the rankings all year, and they’ll set expectations that I’m sure many on the playoff committee will buy into.
It was never really relevant to begin with b/c the coaches, or more specifically their SIDs, don’t know what they’re doing and/or most had an agenda. The only reason it was ever “relevant” was b/c it, for some stupid reason, was a part of the BCS calculation. With that being history, this really s/h gone with it, IMO.
It’s a historically important poll, though. Old habits die hard, especially in college football.
I agree and I’m no fan of the “superior” AP poll either. Too many agendas.
If you would have left it at “I wasn’t going to insult anyone’s intelligence by making a post re: a poll that is now completely irrelevant b/c of the CFB playoff” you would have been up for the comment of the day! haha
K has a way of doing that…the guy is the sports writer’s equivalent to Steinbeck. Don’t worry though, Jordan. Your girlfriend Kelly Kapowski is super hot.
the hottest
Could quibble here and there, but it’s reasonable. I concerned with us at 3, but don’t see a lot of compelling arguments for those below us, so I guess, meh, for a preseason poll, why not?
Yeah pretty much agree.
Wisconsin plays in a very weak division with their toughest game being either Nebraska at home or Minnesota on the road. Even if they lose to LSU in Houston on Aug 30 they could easily be 12-1 going into the B1G championship game.
Strangest thing is hearing folks talk about how Nebraska had to take some time to transition to the level of competition in the Big 10…as if a) the Big 10 is has superior competition to the Big 10 and as if b) they were actually consistently competitive in their later years in the Big 12.
They had a strong final season in the Big 12 basically because of Suh. We still took them in the CCG.
Yup and weren’t we down by 17??
Love how people dog us for being ranked high, and not finishing there, yet oregon gets ranked top 5 again and again. And they lose to stanford again, and again, and again.
Oregon needs to get much, much better in the trenches before they are ever going to break through.
Man Nike is the best! 😉
right lol. Bought and paid for ducks team.
Malzahn is mentally a football supervillain.
Serious question: Do you really feel we are going to smash Baylor this year? Why? Obviously, I hope so, and I don’t know as much about Baylor as I’d like, but I kind of think the Big 12 winner, and Final 4 team, will be the winner of the OU-Baylor game. I’d like to have more detailed information on their team. I think they have super QB/WRs, sounds like the DL is good, but that’s all I have heard about. I’d like a lot of details on Baylor.
Baylor can’t play on the road and they’ve never won in Norman. They’ll have a high flying offense again that relies on outscoring other teams but it won’t be enough in Norman.
They lost 13 starters, including 4/5 of their secondary, and 3/5 on their offensive line. They take a step back this year for sure.
Love facts:-)
Im a huge stats guy, so thats something I noticed right off the bat. Why no one in the media mentions they are 122nd in the country in returning starters is beyond me. Everyone is in a trance from their offense, and dosent even look at the rest of their team.
Haha. Cause its shiny. Look at a&m. All o no d. If Baylor was in the sec, voters would have to create a ranking above 1, in their minds
Also, don’t ever disregard intangibles. They were total punks about that game last year, and between their H.C. and players mouthing off, specifically Oakman, I am confident that OUr team will be highly motivated and Owen Field is gonna’ be rockin’!
All their secondary guys who took cheap shots at us all game are gone, thank god. They were really a dirty team last year.
They lose a lot on both sides of the ball. They play us at home. We hung with them until just before the half last year and will have a vastly improved team on both sides of the ball….and, I believe, in the booth, calling plays.
I wonder what would have happened if we could have actually generated some offense in that game, especially in the first half.
that’s kind of what I was wondering, too.
Thanks guys, for all these answers. That makes more sense. I sure think their QB is good, and a good QB can win about any game. I believe we will be better, if some WRs step up, and I believe that they will. IF DBG is there, will be a very difficult team to beat b/c he will demand so much attention it should make us look better elsewhere, and we should look pretty good w/o him anyway. Where can you go on the internet to read about teams?
Heard the Baylor players are saying 10, really, same ole no respect. Hmm, have they ever won anything higher than a couple of SWC’s & 1 Big 12 conf.
Let’s just say we have more options on offense than we did last year. Also, I think our OL will dominate. Defensively, Petty will deal with more pressure than any other team he will face. He won’t be in rhythem and will force a lot of throws.
We have them in our house and get Jump Around ready to play.
UCLA is way overrated. The best win they had last year was against #23 USC. They lost to the top three teams in the PAC by 10+ points each. I’m not even picking them to beat Texas.
On Alabama, it seems we’ve reached saturation in that everybody is just trying to find reasons to rank Alabama #1 in the pre-season poll regardless of what happened last season but they couldn’t rank them ahead of FSU without looking clownish so they ranked them #2. It’s just mindless groupthink at this point and everybody is trying real hard to ignore the elephant in the room. The elephant being that Bama simply CANNOT defend uptempo offenses and that will be their undoing every time they face one.
I’m thinking they are too.
I’m not at all sure about this. UCLA certainly sucked in the recent past, but the improvement curve under Mora has been astonishing. They also have been improving the quality of their recruits dramatically. They may be more deserving than it might first appear.
UCLA got destroyed by oregon, lost by 2 td to stanford, and lost to an arizona state team that got thrashed by Texas tech. Their best win was over USC.
7 is way too high IMO, 11-12 more reasonable.
I think they beat texas, but you make some good points.
Texas is a massive wild card. If UCLA dosent come with their A game, I think the whorns can win that one. UCLA dosent have the best run defense, and gray and brown could easily eat them alive.
I was thinking more 15-18ish.
That may be a tad high for them, talent drops off dramatically once you get past the top 10.
yeah, I can’t really disagree with you, I just know that some coaches seem to have that x factor with the ability to come in and turn things around in dramatic fashion in a year or two, and Mora has had some of that look about him. My neighbors are huge UCLA fans, so that has caused me to pay some attention, but it may also have skewed the input a bit. 🙂
i completely agree, they are trending up. I just dont quite think they are there yet. they havent recruited like this for a full cycle yet, once they get 4 years of top recruits like they have been getting, watch out.
Bama-overrated auburn-overrated so car-always overrated uga-always overrated lsu-will eventually be overrated at some point(probly jump six spots for beating Petey the blind kid) ole miss-overrated and a&m-overrated. ESPN started this crap and now, hopefully these new folks have some integrity
“Pretty bird, pretty bird” -Petey the blind kid
Saw a tweet that 10 of the SEC’s 14 teams are ranked in the Top 29. There’s no way it ends that way…No one will go undefeated in the SEC this year. Book it!
We should do a “book it!” game on here where if you get a bold prediction right you get a personal pizza from Pizza Hut! We’re grown now…we need ways to win those mini pizzas without having to read! 🙂
I had to work through lunch… I’d slap a koala for one of those right now.
ISU beats Texas.
Book It!
LOL!
LOL! I like it!
South Carolina isn’t a top 10 team, TAMU, Ole Miss, and Washington have no business being in the top 25. I’d put T-Tech, Texas, and Okie State in the top 25 ahead of those last three teams.
Alabama is going to lose 3 games or more this year! First one to call it – reason – Lane Kiffin – the guy is just plain BAD LUCK! haha
They don’t play a tough enough of a schedule to lose three games. They’ll sleepwalk through most of their schedule and probably end up in the playoffs.
Alabama is a bit high (not surprised).
Seems like a bit of Hateraid (I definitely understand it cause I’m tired of them too!) on Alabama for being at #2 but I’m ok with it. Since Saban has been at Alabama they have been ranked in the top 7 at the end of the year rankings 5 out of seven years and one of the 2 they weren’t was his first season when he took over a slumping program. Saban is also a defensive mind and it may take him a while to figure out these up tempo offense but now that more SEC teams are using them that is just more times he has to figure it out. Last year OU was really the only up tempo offense that beat them. They lost to Auburn on a crazy last second 100yd FG return not to the offense. They are also still recruiting at an extremely high level. I think the crazy parts I see in this ranking is UCLA at #7 for a team that finished no better than tied for 4th in their conference and I don’t want to just hate on the Longhorns but ranking them at #24 seems crazy when even Charlie Strong thinks they will loose 3 to 4 games this year. But after all its preseason and in a few short weeks none of it will matter but I’m glad I was typing this for the last few minutes instead of working! 🙂
Bama was headed to overtime against Auburn. And with the late game surge that Auburn had paired with the kicker Bama had, I have to think Auburn could have won that game even without the FG return.
Oh I definately agree! I was just saying Auburn didn’t win the game because they were a “spread offense!” Just saying/trying to make the point that if that is all it took to beat Alabama then a ton of SEC teams would have switched years ago.
Until we prove that we can stop other teams from lining up and running down our throats, being ranked #3 is WAYYY to high IMO. ND RB’s ran up & down the field; UT had 2 back run for more than 100 yards; Baylor ran it for a good average; Bama ran at will. Hope Coach Mike & the rest of the front 7 have figured some things out…
Bama did not run it at will. Most of Bama’s yards came off big plays. Yes they did have some success (especially when the Freshman came in) but it was not at will.
Phillips was out all those games, and hes an integral part of the 3-3-5 being able to stop the run.
he played nd…..his last game
He was hurting and the other guys that play NG were not nearly as good as they are now. The same goes for the linebackers. I just can’t see how OUr front seven isn’t going to be really good against the run and the pass.
my bad, didnt think he played vs the irish. He was out for the season after that game though, so I highly doubt he was even close to 100% vs ND.
I think ND had 27 runs for 100 yards and 2 runs for 100 or so (pretty much two busted plays)..put those two runs at the avg for the other runs and we had a pretty good rush D going
K- I love your statement about TAMU. “One of the most dominant off-season teams ever.”
Clever and very true.
Comment of the day clever? 🙂
The bowl game everybody wants to see Oregon State VS South Carolina.
Lollll
I’ve been waiting on this one for years. Lord help all us men if Oregon State wins that one. Bragging rights for a LONG time.
Gotta love the “unbiased” commentary!!!
Love it
“The most dominant off-season ever”…….and yes, gotta clock Baylor. Privately, I am looking forward to seeing Manziel be shocked at the speed of the NFL. He’ll talk trash one too many times to the wrong person………
Amen brother. Don’t wish harm on him but just several people bring him down a few pegs, just to let him know you can’t just run around like a manziel with your head cut off and heave it and always have good things happen
I’m a part-time LSU fan. Their team is young. I don’t expect much out of them this year.
Ohio St. has an easy schedule.
I expect the same out of FSU as they showed last year. However, they do play Clempson, Noder Daim, Flarda, and Lewaville.
F*** Barn.
UCLA intrigues me.
Wait, there’s an “i” in Lewavulle?
I think Lewavulle, Lewaville, and Louieville are acceptable. One of my friends is from Lewhatever and says “Louieville.” Weird.
My LSU friends make no mistake about the pronunciation of Baton Rouge. They say Bat-on Rujz (jz – like a soft “j” in juice). They’re proper cajuns…
I’m going with “Lewhatever”. That’s the best!
Man, whoever it was that gave Arkansas a vote should have their voting privileges revoked……and the size of knee pads the media has for the Alabama program is embarrassing. Common sense says them and Auburn should be flipped. That’s the team that concerns me the most.
I see the typical SEC love. Not surprising. Can’t wait for Ol Bobby to show them what’s up again
I wonder which 3 coaches voted OU #1 in this poll?
The starry-eyed love some folks keep giving Bama and the SEC is so mindless and gushing it’s become embarrassing. No other team can have these kinds of question marks, including a new qb and OC, and be ranked this high. We’ve got talking heads at ESPN already planning out Jacob Coker’s Heisman-winning career where he will lead the Tide to face FSU for all the marbles, all before he’s even taken a single snap in CFB.
Just unbelievable.
Agree very much on Sarkisian and USC. I’ve got a hunch he is going to be good enough to keep them competitive, but they will end up being something like Oregon – racking up a lot of 10-win seasons but never quite able to put it all together.