The Most Overrated Teams of the Final College Football Coaches' Top 25 Poll

Alabama's dominating win over LSU last night gave us a definitive answer as to who the best team in the country really was this year, and the voters rewarded the Tide accordingly by putting them No. 1 in both polls today. 

The final polls are basically an afterthought, as all the games have been played and the teams have proven their worth by now, but there were a few teams that did receive a little too much love from the coaches. 

Here's a look at the five most overrated teams of the final coaches' poll. 

5. Arkansas Razorbacks

Arkansas' offense was truly one of the hidden gems in college football this year, but if you look at how the Razorbacks were simply obliterated by LSU and Alabama this year, it's hard to put them up in the same "top five in the country" category as the Tigers and the Tide. 

This is a team that decided to sleepwalk through two conference road games against Ole Miss and Vanderbilt in consecutive weeks, and the Razorbacks barely survived and escaped with their dignity. 

When you only play four road games all year, and you come about two plays short of losing all four of them, I'm sorry, but that's just not the mark of a true top-five team. 

14. Houston Cougars

Houston had something to celebrate after the TicketCity Bowl.

Yes, the Cougars were finally able to celebrate beating a ranked team, something they didn't do at all during their 12-0 run through the regular season. Admittedly, though, it did help that the ranked team they beat happened to be a Penn State squad that wanted nothing to do with being in the TicketCity Bowl and certainly played like it. 

Sure, Case Keenum and the Houston offense put up ridiculous numbers this year, but they did it against some of the worst defenses in the country like UAB, Rice and UTEP. 

No matter how many wins and points Houston puts up this year, that spanking that Southern Miss gave the Cougars exposed them as a fraud.

16. Kansas State Wildcats

101st. 

That's where Kansas State ranked nationally in total offense this year. 

With that type of shoddy offensive production, it's a miracle that the Wildcats were able to win 10 games this year. 

But when you look at their schedule and see that they beat just two ranked teams by a combined four points this season, it gives you a good indication of how they were able to reach double digit wins this season. 

Still, that beat down by Oklahoma told us all what we needed to know about the Wildcats this year—they weren't as good as their record actually looked. 

21. Cincinnati Bearcats

Cincinnati totaled 10 wins this season, which definitely deserves some appreciation, but when you look at the Bearcats’ schedule and realize that exactly zero of those wins came against ranked foes, it does make you wonder just how legitimate of a team Cincinnati was this year. 

Butch Jones’ squad’s three losses came to the three toughest opponents on their schedule—Tennessee, West Virginia and Rutgers—and they never truly stepped up to the plate and proved that they really did deserve the piece of the Big East championship that they won. 

Teams like Auburn, Missouri and Texas that were left off of the final Top 25 have a very valid argument to make as to why they deserve to be ranked over a team like Cincinnati.

24. Nebraska Cornhuskers

Florida State and Texas A&M may have been the two most disappointing teams of the 2011 season, but Nebraska is right up there with them. 

The Cornhuskers went 9-4 in their first season in the Big Ten, but there were times when they looked more like a 4-9 team.

Nebraska’s defense didn’t come close to living up to its hype this year, partly because DT Jared Crick went down with an injury and partly because the players seemed to lack passion.

The Cornhuskers got throttled by the three toughest teams they played—Wisconsin, Michigan and South Carolina—and they got inexcusably picked off by Northwestern at home.

The two ranked teams they did beat happened to be a Michigan State team that was in full let down mode after a miraculous win over Wisconsin the week before, and a Penn State team that wasn’t even sure if it wanted to play a game, as that was back when the Jerry Sandusky scandal first broke.

Sure, nine wins is nine wins, but this certainly wasn’t a very inspiring campaign for Nebraska, and it’s one that makes you wonder if the Cornhuskers are truly going to be able to compete for a Big Ten championship in 2012.