USA Today Preseason College Football Rankings 2016: Twitter Reacts to Amway Poll

The USA Today Amway Coaches Poll was released Thursday, with defending national champions Alabama topping the list. Not surprisingly, Twitter was buzzing after the release. 

Here are the preseason Top 25 rankings:

Ranking	Team	Points	First-Place Votes
1	Alabama	1,585	55
2	Clemson	1,524	7
3	Oklahoma	1,398	0
4	Florida State	1,351	1
5	Ohio State	1,321	0
6	Louisiana State	1,241	0
7	Stanford	1,149	0
8	Michigan	1,062	0
9	Notre Dame	1,034	0
10	Tennessee	960	1
11	Michigan State	901	0
12	Mississippi	792	0
13	Houston	668	0
14	Texas Christian	649	0
15	Iowa	579	0
16	Georgia	525	0
17	Southern California	468	0
18	Washington	454	0
19	Oklahoma State	426	0
20	North Carolina	422	0
21	Baylor	383	0
22	Oregon	361	0
23	Louisville	331	0
24	UCLA	296	0
25	Florida	245	0

Barrett Sallee of Bleacher Report offered a tongue-in-cheek guide for analyzing the preseason Coaches Poll:

Chris Low of ESPN concurred that fans shouldn't read too much into these preliminary rankings:

There weren't too many surprises atop the poll.

Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma were each playoff teams a year ago and appear to be loaded on paper once again. The Crimson Tide rightfully earned a lot of respect given their four national titles in the past seven years and six straight top-ranked recruiting classes. Clemson returns quarterback and Heisman Trophy hopeful Deshaun Watson and potentially the nation's best offense, while Oklahoma returns fellow Heisman contender Baker Mayfield.

Ohio State's inclusion in the Top Five was perhaps the closest thing to a surprise atop the rankings, however, as Bruce Feldman hinted at:

As for teams making big splashes in the Top 10, it's hard to look past Tennessee, a team that finished 9-4 last season and won its last six games. 

Aaron Suttles of the Tuscaloosa News couldn't look past the hype:

Head coach Butch Jones wasn't paying it any mind, however, per Fox Sports Knoxville:

And no, Jones wasn't the one first-place vote for Tennessee, per George Schroeder of USA Today:

While there weren't a ton of surprises in the rankings, there will always be a few perceived slights or missed projections: 

Sallee thought Texas A&M was one of them:

Overall, however, a poll that includes three defending playoff teams in the Top Three, a fourth (Michigan State) at No. 11 and a number of power programs—Florida State, Ohio State, LSU, Stanford, Michigan and Notre Dame—in the Top 10 isn't one that is going to cause too many ripples across college football. 

What will be far more fascinating than the poll itself will be seeing which teams live up to their lofty—or disappointing—preseason rankings. Certainly, no team is currently under more scrutiny than Alabama. But for the Crimson Tide, that's just business as usual at this point.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.