Coaches Poll: 5 Things That Matter, Overrated, Underrated, Winners, Losers
The 2022 Preseason Coaches Poll powered by USA TODAY Sports was released. Here are the topics that matter with the overrated and underrated teams, and which conference got the most respect.
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2022 Bowl Projections | Preseason Rankings 1-131
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5. Who is, technically, overrated in the 2022 Coaches Poll?
Everyone too easily fires out the terms overrated and underrated when it comes to teams, players, tacos, and just about every other aspect of life. But for something to be overrated, it has to be rated.
The 2022 college football teams were just rated in the Preseason USA TODAY Coaches Poll, and here are the five teams who appear to be ranked a tad bit too high.
No. 7 Texas A&M
This is a whole lot of respect being given to a team that has all the talent in the world, but is really, really, really young. Are the skill players strong enough? Can the team be more consistent? Can all the superstar recruits make an impact right away? This is hardly an egregiously high ranking, but top ten is a wee bit of a push for right now.
A&M Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
– CFN 2022 Preseason Rankings 1-131
No. 10 Baylor
To be totally fair to the Coaches Poll, we have a chronic Baylor underrating problem, so this might just be dead on right. However, a top ten preseason nod is too much love considering the defending Big 12 champs have a whole lot of reworking and tweaking to do.
Baylor Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
No. 16 Pitt
Like Baylor, there’s a good chance we might be missing what everyone else is seeing. The pass rush will be fantastic, and Kedon Slovis is a fine replacement for Kenny Pickett, but for a team that found lightning in a bottle last season, this top 16 ranking is assuming it’ll all happen again. It’s a top 25 team, but 16 is a tad high.
Pitt Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
– 2022 Preseason USA TODAY Coaches Poll
No. 19 Wake Forest
Wake Forest will put up big numbers, be a ton of fun, and it’ll win a lot of games against the teams it’s supposed to beat, and one or two against the good teams, too. However, is it better than Wisconsin, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Ole Miss? Not really. Is it better than unranked Iowa, Penn State, Tennessee, BYU, LSU, or Auburn? Not really. Is it better than North Carolina, who’s technically ranked 33rd? Ehhhh.
Wake Forest Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
No. 22 Cincinnati
It’s a good Cincinnati team, but a whole lot of great parts are gone – being ahead of Arkansas, Iowa, and a slew of other good Power Five programs is a bit too much respect. 22 isn’t terribly far off, but the ranking assumes it’s the best Group of Five program coming into the season. At the moment, UCF is close, Boise State and San Diego State are in that mix, and Houston – at least from the preseason look – should be higher than 25.
UC Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule
And then there are the …
NEXT: 2022 Coaches Poll – 5 most underrated teams
4. Who is, technically, underrated in the 2022 Coaches Poll?
Tennessee
Don’t confuse potential record with talent, and don’t project what the final win count might be. Tennessee has a bear of a slate, it’s going to have to fight to get eight wins, and it has an offense that’s going to rip through everything in its path. This is a top 20-caliber team starting the season in the Others Receiving Votes category at 28th overall.
Tennessee Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
Iowa and Penn State
Come on, now. We’re all adults, and we can all speak freely here. OF COURSE you’d take these two over at least five – closer to ten – teams ranked in the preseason top 25.
Iowa returns every bit as strong – and even better offensively – than the version that went to the Big Ten Championship last year, and talent-wise, Penn State is more than good enough to be favored over just about anyone outside of the 15 best teams in America. Keeping both programs off the list to get into the club is a slap in the face.
Penn State Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
Iowa Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
LSU
So, you don’t think LSU has top 25 talent and a head coach in Brian Kelly who’s going to make this all come together in a hurry? So, right now, on a neutral field, you’d take Wake Forest over LSU? You’d take Houston over LSU? You’d take Miami over LSU? You think – talent-wise – that LSU is the 30th best team in college football? Okay …
LSU Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
Florida
This is my preseason hill I’m willing to die on – Florida is about to be a thing again fast. Billy Napier’s offense is going to be dangerous, there’s a lot of talent back on D, and this is a rehab more than a total gut job from a team that lost a slew of close games last year.
I’ll be more than happy to eat it if I’m wrong, but this is far, far closer to being a top 15 team going into the season than the 37th best team in America ranked barely ahead of Utah State.
Speaking of big calls …
Florida Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
No. 15 USC
Even more than Florida, this is my one big giant call to start the season. It might not work, and it might take more effort than it seems, but outside of Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Clemson, find a better starting 22 in America than the all-star team Lincoln Riley just put together. This is a top-five caliber team – at least on paper – but I get it. 15 is a smart wait-and-see spot. Again, find another team outside of the top four with so many great parts.
USC Preview | Top 10 Players | Schedule Analysis
NEXT: The preseason top 25 is crazy, but it’s fun
3. Coaches Poll 2022: It might be crazy, but it’s a fun top 25
There will be plenty of massive fan bases out there who’ll look at the preseason USA TODAY Top 25 Coaches Poll and be peeved.
If you’re an Iowa fan, where’s your respect? Sort of like Wisconsin basketball, you know that Iowa football will be a top 25 team and contender for the conference title all season long even if it doesn’t quite look that way on paper, but 26th?
If you’re a Tennessee fan, you see what’s happening. You see just how good that offense is going to be and the improvements made on D, and yet you have the 28th best team in America behind at least five teams in the top 25 you know you’d beat?
LSU isn’t in the top 25, Auburn didn’t make the cut, and Florida and UCLA aren’t, either, even though they’re all going to be interesting – and all would probably favored to win the Group of Five conference of your choice.
Miami is the 17th-ranked team in America based on a coaching change, and Florida State – who won last year’s meeting 31-28 – and should be better got just one lonely single point.
SMU got two points. Army got 3. Utah State received 12, and FSU was one 25th spot on some coach’s ballot away from being shut out.
And it’s all awesome.
Related
College Football Preview 2022: CFN 131 Team Previews, Schedules, Rankings
Was Indiana the 17th best team going into the 2021 season? Of course not. Was Iowa State the eighth-best team, and were Coastal Carolina and Louisiana worthy of being on the preseason top 25 list over, say, Utah or Michigan – and yeah, blind squirrel finds nut, I’m thumping on that one as I screamed at the time that Michigan was a top 15 team – of course not, but those fan bases got to enjoy the speculation.
It’s great for college football in this superpower, expansion era sport with an utterly predictable preseason top four that a slew of slightly outside the norm teams get to be jacked by the rankings going into a season.
I rail on Wake Forest not being the 19th best team in America, but it might be – and yay for the fans that their smallish private school is ranked ahead of a slew of big-name ACC football programs.
Good for Cincinnati and Houston to continue to get more attention as they both enter into the Power Five next season. Great for Baylor to be preseason top ten, and for big names like Miami and Texas and USC to be thought of as legitimate top 20 programs again.
And great for Utah, who worked its butt off to earn the respect of the coaches to get the preseason No. 8 slot.
I hope we do get a Michigan-like scenario and someone outside of the top 25 ends up in the College Football Playoff. I hope this preseason ranking fires up the bases of some of the bluebloods, and provides bulletin board material for others.
To set the schmaltz dial up to ten, I hope college football fans get fired up over these rankings and use them as fuel in one way or another as a silly diversion from everything else.
It all starts now, and it’s still two tons of fun.
NEXT: SEC Expansion … The 2023 Big 12 Looks Strong
2. Coaches Poll 2022: The 2023 Big 12 Looks Strong
What a difference a year makes.
Last year at this time, the Big 12 was still fighting for survival. That might be a huge overstatement, but it was trying to figure out what its next move was with Oklahoma and Texas agreeing to bolt for the SEC.
Oklahoma was third in last year’s preseason USA TODAY Coaches Poll, Iowa State was eighth, Texas at 19th, and Oklahoma State was 22nd. In all, if you took out the two defectors, four of the remaining eight Big 12 teams got votes of some sort, and none of them looked like national title contenders from the bleeding conference.
– 2022 Preseason Predictions For Every Big 12 Game
Oklahoma and Texas are still planning on leaving, but at the moment, that’s not happening until 2024. Throw in the new teams scheduled to arrive next season, and the 2023 season – based on how much respect the teams are being given by the Coaches Poll – appears to be a whopper.
This is getting way ahead of things with the 2022 season still to come, but Oklahoma (9), Baylor (10), Oklahoma State (11), Texas (18), Cincinnati (23), and Houston (25) are all in the current preseason top 25.
Throw in BYU (technically, 29th), UCF (32nd), Kansas State (45th), and Iowa State (46th), and there’s a lot for the Big 12 to chirp about with nine of its 2023 14 schools ranked.
NEXT: Final Overall Thoughts, Observations
1. Preseason Coaches Poll Winners, Losers, Final Overall Thoughts, Observations
– Winner: 2020 Preseason Coaches Poll. There was never a weirder, crazier season than 2020, and yet the College Football Playoff was as chalky as possible. The 2020 preseason poll? 1 Clemson, 2 Ohio State, 3 Alabama. Notre Dame was 10th, Texas A&M 13th, and Cincinnati 22nd.
– Loser: 2021 Preseason Coaches Poll. From the Department of Just Sayin’ four of the 2021 Power Five champions weren’t ranked in last year’s preseason top 25. Utah was technically 26th, Michigan 33rd, Pitt got just six points, and Baylor didn’t get a single vote.
– Winner: Big 12. Oklahoma (9), Baylor (10), Oklahoma State (11). Three Big 12 teams are ranked in the top 11, and Texas (18), makes it four in the top 18.
– Loser: Big Ten. Six 2023 SEC programs were ranked in the 2022 preseason top 25. The ACC had five teams ranked – six with Notre Dame – and the Big Ten checked in with just four. The Pac-12? Three.
– Winner: Kentucky. The preseason Coaches Poll began in 1978. Kentucky was ranked 17th, and it hasn’t been in the preseason poll since. It’s 21st in the 2022 preseason poll.
– Loser: LSU. The program went from being on an all-time high with the 2019 national championship season to unranked in the 2022 preseason. This is the first time since 2000 that LSU wasn’t in the preseason Coaches Poll.
– Winner: Big name losers. Texas is coming off a 5-7 season with a late-year loss at home to Kansas. It’s 18th in the nation to start the season. USC was a mess in a 4-8 campaign. It’s 15th.
– Loser: Group of Five programs. Cincinnati (22) and Houston (25) were ranked, but they’re going to the Big 12 next season meaning no 2023 Group of Five programs were in the preseason top 25. San Diego State with 25 points was the highest-ranked G5er.
– 2022 Preseason USA TODAY Coaches Poll
– This is obviously all a projection and an educated guess, so no dogging the preseason polls too much since they’re supposedly a jumping off point, but there’s a LOT of faith being put into teams with a lot of question marks.
All in on Clemson (4) being amazing, but can it find an offense again? Can Notre Dame (5) keep it all going with a somewhat new head coach? Can Michigan (6) find the same magic, can Texas A&M (7) be a whole lot better after fizzling a bit last year, and can Oklahoma (9) maintain and improve after losing Lincoln Riley, Caleb Williams, and needing to rebuild a bit?
Yeah, because that’s what great programs do, but that’s nothing compared to the respect given to …
– Texas. You can see where the USC thing is going with all of the talent amassed from the transfer portal – 15 is low – but there’s a massive PROVE IT factor when it comes to Texas. The parts are there to explode, but the parts were there last year, too. This also goes for …
– Miami. 17 is a ton of respect for a 7-5 team that didn’t get appreciably more talented outside of bringing aboard Mario Cristobal as the new head coach. To be fair, the last three losses in the final nine games were close and could’ve gone the other way. Okay, so it’s not that bad a ranking, but it’s still a tad high.
– You never rank teams based on potential records – that’s not fair to teams that have great talent and nasty schedules – but with that said, five teams that aren’t in the top 25 but might be at the end thanks to their respective slates, or because they’ll just be that good. From most likely to least …
1) Iowa (technically 26th), 2) Florida (37th), 3) Army (tied for 46th), 4) BYU (29th), 5) Tennessee (28th).
And on the flip side …
– Teams in the preseason top 25 that probably won’t be in the final rankings … from most likely to least. 1) Wake Forest (19th), 2) Pitt (16th), 3) Michigan State (14th), 4) Texas (18th), 5) Baylor (10th).
And finally …
– Teams that didn’t get a single point or vote that have a shot at finishing in the final rankings … from most likely to least. 1) Washington, 2) West Virginia, 3) Arizona State, 4) Memphis, 5) Marshall.
– As always, just remember, this might be a fun exercise, but the College Football Playoff rankings are the ones that matter. This sure is a blast, though. It’s one of college football’s great traditions, and it keeps on rolling.
CFN Predictions of Every Game
ACC | Big Ten | Big 12 | Pac-12 | SEC
AAC | C-USA | Ind | MAC | M-West | Sun Belt
CFN Preview 2021: All 131 Teams
2022 Bowl Projections | Preseason Rankings 1-131
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
