Amway Preseason Coaches Top 25 Poll: Biggest Snubs and Surprises
The first preseason college football poll was released Thursday, the surest sign yet that the 2015 season is just around the corner. It also provides one of the biggest things yet for fans to either get excited or gripe about, depending on where their team was ranked.
The Amway Coaches Poll no longer has any effect on who will play for the national title, but that doesn't lessen its value as a discussion topic. The poll, issued by USA Today, is voted on by 64 FBS head coaches who will submit weekly ballots throughout the season.
Not surprisingly, defending national champion Ohio State was picked first in the initial poll, with the Buckeyes grabbing 62 of 64 first-place votes to begin far ahead of No. 2 TCU. The Horned Frogs and No. 3 Alabama both received one first-place vote, and they were followed by Baylor and Oregon in the top five.
What stood out the most from this poll, both in terms of surprises and snubs? Follow along to see what we noticed.
Surprise: Ohio State Wasn't a Unanimous No. 1
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With nearly every major contributor back from the team that won 14 consecutive games in increasingly dominant fashion en route to last season's championship, Ohio State had a very good chance of garnering every possible first-place vote in the preseason poll.
Alas, much like with Hall of Fame voters who believe no baseball player should get elected on the first ballot, there were some coaches who chose not to put the Buckeyes No. 1.
OSU got all but two of the 64 first-place votes, with Alabama and TCU splitting the others. It's worth noting that both Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban and Horned Frogs head coach Gary Patterson are voters this year, but the individual ballots haven't been released, so we don't know if those coaches picked their teams first.
It's also worth noting that being No. 1 isn't necessarily a good thing. According to Zach Barnett of FootballScoop.com, the last preseason No. 1 to go on to win the national title was USC, way back in 2004.
Snub: Alabama Is "Only" Ranked Third
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Most teams wouldn't have much to complain about with a No. 3 preseason ranking, but not every team is Alabama.
"Alabama's No. 3 ranking in the preseason coaches poll is the lowest start for Nick Saban since the 2009 season when Alabama went 14-0," SEC Network's Paul Finebaum noted on Twitter.
The Tide were fifth that year and have been first or second every year since, including No. 2 in the 2014 poll.
Preseason rankings are mostly meaningless, but in the Nick Saban era, there are reasons for the Alabama faithful to be optimistic about their No. 3 ranking. All three of Alabama's national titles under Saban have come in years that began with a non-No. 1 ranking (2009, 2011 and 12), while the Tide failed to win a championship in the seasons they were first in the preseason poll (2010, 2013).
Surprise: The Coaches Love LSU
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LSU is one of five schools ranked in the preseason poll that didn't finish the 2014 season in the Top 25, along with Arkansas, Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Tennessee. And at No. 13, the Tigers are the second-highest of the group (behind No. 11 Notre Dame) in terms of preseason ranking.
Despite similar concerns at quarterback that plagued LSU last season, voters have faith that Les Miles can return his program to the level it was at from 2010-13, when the Tigers averaged 11 wins and were a regular player in the national championship picture.
Perhaps the voting was more weighted toward the fact that LSU will have another strong defense—albeit one run by a new coordinator, as John Chavis left for SEC rival Texas A&M—and one of the most feared running backs in the country in Leonard Fournette
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Snub: Mississippi State Is Unranked
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It was bad enough that the SEC media voted Mississippi State to finish last in the seven-team West Division during the conference's media days earlier this month. But considering the strength of that division, there was going to be a good team listed at the bottom. But the lack of faith in Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs has extended across the country, as MSU begins outside the Top 25.
Officially, the Bulldogs are ranked 26th, getting 164 votes to finish just two points behind Tennessee (and 17 ahead of fellow SEC West team, Texas A&M).
MSU finished 12th in last season's final poll—the product of a breakout year that saw it begin 9-0 and spend several weeks atop the Amway poll—before slipping to a 1-3 finish. The Bulldogs only bring back nine starters from that team, but that includes electric dual-threat quarterback Dak Prescott.
The Bulldogs weren't ranked last preseason, beginning 29th, so they know what it's like to start out unappreciated.
Surprise: Stanford Back?
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After winning at least 11 games each year from 2010-13, Stanford slipped to 8-5 last season despite having the nation's third-ranked defense. Struggles on offense, particularly in the red zone, contributed heavily to the Cardinal's performance in 2014.
Now Stanford has to replace seven defensive starters, including its entire line, but Amway voters have confidence that coach David Shaw and fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan can still get it done. The Cardinal begin the year ranked No. 21, which is fifth-best among Pac-12 teams and just ahead of defending South Division champion, Arizona.
The Cardinal were 11th in last year's preseason Amway poll. But by mid-October, they were out of the rankings after starting 4-3.
Snub: The Run Is Over For Texas
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Charlie Strong's hiring at Texas was met with great hope that he'd be able to quickly get the program back on track after a slow decline under Mack Brown. This was evident when the Longhorns opened last season at No. 24 in the Amway preseason poll.
But most coaches decided Texas wasn't worth ranking this year following a 6-7 campaign, as the Longhorns garnered only eight total votes to sit at 38th.
This marks the first time since 1998 that Texas isn't in the preseason Top 25 for the coaches poll, per Laken Litman of USA Today. A win in the season opener at Notre Dame could make that absence a short one, however, similar to how the Longhorns only spent two weeks in last year's poll before their home loss to BYU knocked them out.
Surprise: Missouri Isn't as Underrated as in Previous Years
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Two-time defending SEC East champion Missouri is used to getting discounted by now, though this season it's not nearly as bad as a year ago. The Tigers open at No. 23 in the Amway Poll after finishing 11th to end last season.
Mizzou's two division-title runs began as an unranked team. The first time wasn't that surprising, as far as the preseason voting went, since it was coming off a 5-7 season. But after going 12-2 in 2013 (and ending the year at No. 5), the Tigers were the unofficial No. 26 team in the country to start 2014.
That projection seemed to be spot on when Mizzou was shocked at home by Indiana, but then the Tigers went on to win the East again, posting an 11-3 record.
Missouri faces a tougher road to success this season than in 2014, though, as it has to replace its entire defensive line and most skill players outside of quarterback Maty Mauk and running back Russell Hansbrough.
Snub: Not All Hype Is the Same
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Following strong finishes to surprise seasons, including dominant bowl victories, both Arkansas and Tennessee were quickly anointed as the sleeper teams of 2015. This was despite each only posting 7-6 records—which South Carolina's Steve Spurrier claimed led to "people in Knoxville and Fayetteville doing cartwheels," per Gene Sapakoff of the Post and Courier.
The Amway voters have bought into that hype, ranking both teams in the preseason poll. But Arkansas got far more benefit of the doubt, opening at No. 20, compared to the No. 25 spot for Tennessee.
The Razorbacks received more than twice as many votes (377 to 166) as the Volunteers, something we can revisit on Oct. 3 after the two square off in Knoxville.
Surprise: No Mariota, No Problem for Oregon
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The biggest drops between last season's final poll and the 2015 preseason ranking involve teams that lost major pieces from a year ago. Yet Oregon its sitting pretty at No. 5 despite losing the single-most important player from its run to the national title game.
Heisman winner Marcus Mariota is now in the NFL, and the Ducks don't yet know who will replace him at quarterback. But the program's proven track record of success, no matter who is playing that position (or any of the others), seems to have outweighed Mariota's departure in the eyes of Amway voters.
That's understandable, especially since the Ducks bring back standout running backs Royce Freeman and Thomas Tyner and a stable of strong wide receivers. Those pieces make it so that whoever is handing off or throwing to them won't matter much, even if Jeff Lockie or Eastern Washington transfer Vernon Adams don't perform to the same level that Mariota did.
Snub: Sleeping on Arizona?
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Arizona was the surprise winner of the deep Pac-12 South Division in 2014, posting its first 10-win season since 1998 in the process. The Wildcats didn't finish as well as they started, though, getting blown out by Oregon in the conference title game and then falling to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. But with all of their skill players back and the nation's top individual defender, Scooby Wright III, also returning, there's plenty of hope for this season.
The voters, though, think otherwise.
The Wildcats begin the year at No. 22, trailing four other Pac-12 teams, including three (USC, UCLA and Arizona State) from the South. This falls in line with how the conference's media voted Thursday, picking Arizona to finish fourth in its division.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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