Nearly a month before the 2017 season kicks off in earnest, the first noteworthy of the meaningless preseason polls has been released.
With USA Today as its delivery vehicle, the Amway Coaches’ Poll released its initial ranking of the Top 25 teams in the country. Not surprisingly, to some, 2016 national runner-up Alabama is ranked as the top team in the country.
Of the 65 “coaches” (winkwinknudgenudge) who participated in the voting, 49 of them cast their first-place votes for ‘Bama. The Nos. 2 and 3 teams in the country, Ohio State and Florida State, respectively, received five and four first-place votes, respectively. The only other team that received No. 1 nods was fifth-ranked and defending national champion Clemson with seven.
The remainder of the Top 10 is rounded out by No. 4 USC, No. 6 Penn State, No. 7 Washington, No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 9 Michigan and No. 10 Wisconsin.
While there were four Big Ten teams in the Top 10, just one team from the SEC can make the same claim. Overall, though, the latter conference lead all leagues with six teams in the Top 25, followed by the ACC and Big 12 with five each and the Big Ten and Pac-12 with four apiece. The Group of Five program to crack the initial ranking was South Florida, with the AAC school coming in at No. 21.
For those who are curious, and before we get to the complete Top 25 rankings, below are the “coaches” (winkwinknudgenudge) who will vote in this particular poll throughout the 2017 season:
