On Thursday USA Today released the 2018 preseason Amway Coaches Poll. The usual suspects crowd the top five spots. The Alabama Crimson Tide, coming off their most recent National Championship, collected 61 of the 65 total first place votes available. Positioned smartly for the probable fourth iteration of Clemson versus Alabama, in the CFB Playoffs, the No. 2 Tigers collected three first-place votes. The Ohio State Buckeyes stumbled into the final first place vote and find themselves again looking up at the ACC and SEC champions. Rounding out the top five are the Georgia Bulldogs and the Oklahoma Sooners. Enough about those programs. What about the Virginia Tech Hokies? With 524 points Virginia Tech find themselves locked in as the No. 17 program in the preseason poll. After barely dropping the Camping World Bowl to the Oklahoma State Cowboys the Hokies finished last year at No. 25 in the Amway Coaches Poll. Only six points ahead, at No. 16, are the Texas Christian Horned Frogs. With 117 points less than VT, at No. 18, one finds the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Of much more interest is the team that fills the No. 19 ranking. After the implosion of their 2017 season and the dramatic departure of head coach Jimbo Fisher the Florida State Seminoles have snuck back into the top 25. The September 3 matchup between Virginia Tech and Florida State will open the regular season for both programs. Both teams being ranked adds even more drama to a contest whose result will likely carry immediate impact to the ACC Coastal and Atlantic foes vying to return to the top of the conference. The fourth and final ACC squad represented in the preseason poll are the Miami-Florida Hurricanes. After the Clemson Tigers the ‘Canes are the only ACC program represented in the top ten. Clocking in at No. 8, Miami represents the favorite to win the Coastal division. Although they are technically not part of the ACC, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish spend a lot of time in the conference’s company. During the 2018 season ND will face five ACC foes, so we will give them an honorable mention as a partial ACC squad. The Fighting Irish find themselves positioned just out of the top ten at No. 11. Except for Clemson every top 25 ACC program (and ACC honorable mention program) opens their seasons against a ranked opponent. On September 2 Miami starts the year against the No. 24 LSU Tigers. As mentioned above No. 17 VT and No. 19 FSU face one another. Notre Dame starts their season on September 1 against the No. 14 Michigan Wolverines. Clemson also plays on September 1 against the Furman Paladins. Referencing the preseason poll the Hokies will be facing three ranked opponents. No. 19 FSU on September 3, No. 11 ND on October 6, and No. 8 Miami on November 11. You can see the entire 2018 preseason USA Today Amway Coaches Poll here. Go Hokies!! !<doc-sep>SOUTH BEND, IN - OCTOBER 21: Head coach Brian Kelly of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish shakes hands with head coach Clay Helton of the USC Trojans after a game at Notre Dame Stadium on October 21, 2017 in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame won 49-14. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) The first Amway Coaches Poll of the 2018 college football season was released this past week. How different will the AP Top 25 look later in the month? Like pretty much every college football writer around the country, I spend the better part of a half hour hitting refresh on my computer Thursday afternoon, waiting for USA Today to publish the first Amway Coaches Poll of the season. It was late, but there were very few big surprises. One of those few surprises was how high the coaches had Notre Dame at No. 11. Given what we know the team lost from a personnel standpoint, combined with all that we’ve read since the end of last season, I thought the Irish would be lower. Apparently the coaches aren’t buying into a sharp drop-off for Notre Dame in 2018. I also found it interesting that the coaches had Michigan lower than Notre Dame. Between the Shea Patterson hype and returning the bulk of what many national writers and pundits have called one of the nation’s best defenses, I was expecting to see the Wolverines higher than the Irish — possibly in the top ten. It also makes you look at the line for the Michigan-Notre Dame game and rethink what the wise guys in Vegas have been saying. Even though the game is at Notre Dame, the Wolverines are favored across the board. Something tells me that when the first AP Top 25 rankings come out on August 21st, Michigan and Notre Dame will be flip-flopped. The media treats both programs different than the coaches do. They have more bias, and their loyalty often is to a region or conference. The coaches, on the other hand, are loyal to their programs and their friends. In addition to the Wolverines being ranked ahead of Notre Dame in the AP Top 25, don’t be surprised to see other 2018 Irish foes like Stanford and Southern Cal ahead of the Irish. At the end of the day, you want to think what happens on the field is all that matters. We have seen, however, that where you start in the preseason polls can drive the narrative, set the tone and contribute greatly to where you finish the season — regardless of what actually happens on the field.<doc-sep>The strongest league in the Football Bowl Subdivision doesn’t house the nation’s best team, since Alabama plays in the Southeastern Conference. That league, once rulers of the sport with an iron fist, is an imitation of its prior self. The idea that LSU made the cut in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll is, in a word, laughable. Ignore the fact that LSU coach Ed Orgeron inspires little confidence. Focus instead on how the Tigers are again pinning their hopes on a graduate-transfer quarterback as they face four teams in the preseason top 10: Alabama, Georgia, Miami (Fla.) and Auburn. So why did LSU make the cut? Helmets. Jerseys. Reputation, both of the program itself and, more importantly, its conference. LSU is here because of the benefit of the doubt extended to the SEC, which goes something like this: The fifth-best team in this conference must be one of the 25 best teams in all of college football. Which is ridiculous. That benefit of the doubt should instead be extended to a team like Northwestern, winners of 10 games as the No. 17 team in the final Amway Coaches Poll, since the logic should instead go: The sixth-best team in the Big Ten Conference is one of 25 best teams in all of college football. There’s a new top dog across the Bowl Subdivision. With five teams in the top 14 of the preseason poll, the Big Ten is the class of the conference landscape. TOP 25:Outlooks for the teams in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll TIDE RISING:Alabama in familiar spot at No. 1 to start season SNUBS:Five teams that should have been part of the preseason poll MISSING MARK:Overrated and underrated teams in the Top 25 No. 3 Ohio State – more on that in a moment. No. 7 Wisconsin, home to the nation’s best offensive line. No. 9 Penn State, fresh off back-to-back New Year’s Six bowl berths. No. 12 Michigan State, perennially overlooked. And No. 14 Michigan, which can combine with its elite defense a legitimate quarterback. This is the best the college football has to offer. On a smaller scale, the Big Ten East – home to four of the five teams, all but Wisconsin – is the new version of the SEC West, which dominated the championship hunt for a good part of a decade. Even the storm clouds circling Urban Meyer and Ohio State don’t change that equation. For decades, this program has embraced the idea that the brand is bigger than any one individual, whether that’s Meyer, Woody Hayes or Jim Tressel. If Meyer keeps his job, the Buckeyes will be deep in the hunt for the national title in 2018. The same applies if interim coach Ryan Day is running the show. Such is the quality of the Buckeyes’ roster. Wisconsin will be discounted by rivals in the Big Ten and elsewhere, especially in the SEC, who consistently cite the perception that the Badgers are too slow, too plodding and too predictable to be a valid title contender. But the process undertaken by current athletics director Barry Alvarez has led to this moment: Wisconsin is built to not just play for but win this year’s championship. Penn State and Michigan State will go as far as their quarterbacks – Trace McSorley and Brian Lewerke, respectively – can take them, and both coaching staffs feel confident in that equation. Michigan, meanwhile, has a quarterback, period. The Wolverines are a dark-horse playoff contender. Now contrast this makeup with that of the SEC. That Alabama is a powerhouse can’t be overlooked, nor should it be. But the well quickly dries. Georgia and Auburn are top-of-the-line contenders. But all it would take is one misstep – an Auburn loss to Washington, a Georgia loss to South Carolina – to trim the SEC’s avenues to the playoff down to one: the Crimson Tide. The Big Ten will resemble those vintage SEC lineups of the recent past in one fashion: It’ll be a dog-eat-dog push from September through the first Saturday in December. Michigan will take on five of the top 12 teams of the preseason poll. Penn State and Ohio State will face four teams in the preseason top 16. Michigan State will face three ranked teams. Wisconsin two, which may be an issue for the Badgers should push come to shove for the playoff selection committee. But Wisconsin shouldn’t worry about the end result. Within reason, the conference champion should be a no-brainer pick for the top four. That’s the sort of benefit of the doubt normally extended only to the SEC. In 2018, it’s the Big Ten that deserves that preseason respect.<doc-sep>
Not making the cut for the preseason Amway Coaches Poll is essentially a fatal blow to a team’s hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff. Not since the early 1980s has a team opened the season unranked and gone on to win the national championship: Clemson did so in 1981, Miami (Fla.) in 1983 and Brigham Young in 1984. For teams without a realistic chance at making the playoff, however, simply earning preseason Top 25 recognition is a benchmark worthy of celebration. Several teams just on the outside of the initial Coaches Poll, which debuted Thursday, had a strong case for making the cut ahead of a few rivals with flimsier credentials. Here are the five biggest snubs: Florida Atlantic Lane Kiffin and the Owls carry a 10-game win streak into 2018, the second-longest in the Football Bowl Subdivision behind No. 23 Central Florida. A matchup with the Knights on Sept. 21 and a date at No. 5 Oklahoma in the opener probably contributed to the idea that FAU will struggle to match last year’s finish. But this is the best team in Conference USA by a wide margin and a team likely even more comfortable with Kiffin’s system heading into his second season. TIDE RISING:Alabama in familiar spot at No. 1 in the preseason poll TOP 25:Outlooks for the teams in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll South Carolina The Gamecocks, not No. 24 LSU, deserved to be the fifth team from the SEC in the Top 25. Unlike the Tigers, South Carolina has an all-conference quarterback, a solid if unspectacular head coach and a schedule friendly enough to draw several key games – No. 4 Georgia, Texas A&M and Tennessee – at home. This was a nine-win team a year ago with the ability to match that total and finish a clear second in the East. Northwestern There’s no rationale for not including Northwestern in the debut poll. Ten wins last season. A final ranking of 17th in the Coaches Poll. If healthy, one of the nation’s top quarterback prospects in Clayton Thorson. One of the nation’s most consistent coaching staffs, headlined by Pat Fitzgerald. The Wildcats’ case is stronger than that of LSU, No. 21 Texas and even No. 19 Florida State, though the Seminoles have the talent and newfound energy to warrant a preseason ranking. If the Big Ten Conference is the best league in the FBS – and it looks like it is – Northwestern deserves a spot on the back end of the Top 25. Kansas State What may be Bill Snyder’s final turn as Kansas State’s head coach finds the Wildcats in familiar position in the Big 12 Conference. The league has identified its favorites in Oklahoma, No. 16 TCU, No. 20 West Virginia, Texas and No. 25 Oklahoma State. Look for Kansas State to finish ahead of at least two of those teams and perhaps three in making a run at the conference title and earning a spot in the Top 25. There are some experienced hands to replace on defense, but the returning talent on offense and Snyder’s steady hand paint the Wildcats as one of the most overlooked teams in the FBS. Oregon Utah is another Pac-12 Conference team with a case to be made for the Top 25, though coaches and media alike are waiting to see if the Utes’ young core is ready to make a charge at No. 15 Southern California in the South Division. A better option for the preseason poll is Oregon, which is one team with quarterback Justin Herbert and another when the junior is sidelined. A year ago, for example, the Ducks went 6-2 with Hebert and 1-4 without. If he’s healthy, Oregon is a threat to finish second in the North Division.