College football’s preseason prognosticators do not have the best track record.
There always are plenty of teams that begin the year ranked and fall out of the AP Top 25 poll entirely. Last fall, four teams that began the season unranked — Boise State, Indiana, SMU and Arizona State — ended up making the 12-team College Football Playoff field.
So, no. We in the media aren’t great at looking into a crystal ball and telling readers exactly how the college football season will play out. But, I will say, that’s a huge part of the fun in this sport.
It’s why I agreed to become a voter in the AP poll.
This is my first year as part of the panel that determines the weekly rankings, and I picked a particularly interesting time to hop on board. The Big 12 got rid of its preseason poll and a number of my peers in the industry expressed support for eliminating it, arguing that there isn’t much of a point to that sort of thing. Big 12 coaches essentially argued that preseason rankings create narratives regarding conferences based on nothing but perception.
I sympathize with the sentiment, because arguing about conference supremacy is a daily occurrence in this sport, and it’s naïve to think it absolutely has no effect on CFP inclusion/snubs. I admittedly ranked 10 SEC teams in my preseason ballot — which will help contribute to the idea that the SEC is the best and deepest league in the country before anyone takes a single snap.
But I think this is a worthwhile exercise, even if some readers think I hate their team and still others can’t believe I fell for (Enter School Name Here) Brand Bias. It’s good to have a starting point and an initial set of rankings. Those little numbers next to schools’ names help narrow our focus on any given Saturday. The Week 0 matchup of Kansas State-Iowa State in Ireland is now a Top 25 showdown. I think that means something — and maybe it tells people who normally wouldn’t watch it that it’s worth their time.
Rankings should evolve over time and change based on what actually happens on the field. That is how my ballots will work, and I know my peers will do their best to make educated and insightful choices as well. Subjectivity is baked into the process; that’s what happens when you involve human voters.
I’m hoping this preseason ballot will be my toughest one to fill out. I had to base my choices on what I think I know about teams this year, without any results, without seeing how these teams look in scrimmages and without the knowledge of who will win the quarterback competitions at so many of these schools.
I can base some of my analysis off what returns from a season ago — which helps when evaluating Penn State, Clemson and Illinois, for example — but a lot of these programs will be breaking in first-year starters at quarterback and/or relying on transfers to be key contributors. And we just don’t know how that’s going to shake out yet.
So, I will begin the 2025 season by believing in Arch Madness and a healthy Texas run game. I will trust Penn State as much as I can without knowing if they’re capable of beating the Ohio States of the world until they actually do it. I’ll believe that Cade Klubnik actually might be the best quarterback in the country and that Clemson’s dudes up front on the defensive side of the ball will be game wreckers.
I’m in wait-and-see mode with Alabama in Year 2 of the Kalen DeBoer era (though I’m optimistic about DeBoer reuniting with OC Ryan Grubb). I love both DJ Lagway and LaNorris Sellers but am oh-so curious to see what Florida and South Carolina have around them. Can Sam Leavitt carry Arizona State back to the CFP, or was Cam Skattebo the reason the Sun Devils got as far as they did a season ago? I look forward to finding out the answer.
Ultimately, we firmly are in the “I think I think” phase of the college football preseason. I think I think Michigan will be a lot better than it was last year offensively, even if Bryce Underwood isn’t the Day 1 starter. I think I think Indiana’s pickup of Cal QB Fernando Mendoza will end up being one of the most impactful moves of the entire offseason. I think I think Texas Tech’s spending spree is going to work out for the Red Raiders, but without seeing it in action yet I was hesitant to put ‘em too high in my ballot.
We’ll see what I’m right about, what I’m wrong about and what surprises college football has in store for all of us soon enough. Here’s to the journey and to the (over)reactions we have along the way.
