NCAA Football: A Preliminary Top-25 for 2010

I just got through looking at a 2009 preseason college football poll. Here are its predictions for the 2009 regular season.

1.	Florida	12-0
2.	Oklahoma	12-0
3.	USC	12-0
4.	Texas	11-1
5.	Utah	12-0
6.	Alabama	12-0
7.	Michigan State	12-0
8.	Virginia Tech	11-1
9.	Ohio State	11-1
10.	Tulsa	11-1

The rest of this poll and its source can be found here .

I give this poll credit, as it ranks all of the projected teams and their records. 

Here are the actual final BCS rankings from last year:

1	Alabama
2	Texas
3	Cincinnati
4	TCU
5	Florida
6	Boise State
7	Orego n
8	Ohio State
9	Georgia Tech
10	Iowa

The complete poll can be seen here .

Notice six of the top-10 teams are quite different. The other four are certainly not in the correct order. One could say they got 40 percent correct, or just as easily say they missed the entire thing.

A fellow Bleacher Report writer's article made a good point about this.

The reason this struck me so personally is because I tried to curb the hype over the Ole Miss team in 2009. It was my contention that they were simply not strong enough on the lines to be a top-10 team.

Well here we are, one year later, and the same mistake is being made once again. The preseason polls are again hyping teams that simply do not have the horsepower to finish as high as predicted.

Let us examine these teams in depth and see what educated fans think.

1.) Alabama

Alabama is a nearly unanimous choice for the top spot. This is more a show of respect than an educated decision, though. Alabama returns nine of their starting 11 players on the 42nd ranked offense from 2009, but they only return two of their starting 11 players from the second ranked defense in 2009.

They are losing over 40 pounds in their replacement for the all-important 3-4 nose guard. Terrance Cody lost 15 pounds and still checked in at the NFL combine at 350 plus. They will also have to start two true freshmen in the defensive backfield, with other freshmen serving as their backups.

If you think the 42nd ranked offense won them the 2009 national championship, then they are set for 2010. If you think their defense had something to do with it, you might want to look a little harder.

2.) Ohio State

This team does not have the massive replacement problems that Alabama does. The problem here is, why are they here at all?

There are two milestones that every championship team has to come close to reaching. First, these champions allow their opponents less than 4000 yards of offense. Ohio State meets this requirement, as they only allowed 3410 yards to their opponents in 2009.

The second milestone is 5500 yards of offensive production. Ohio State produced about 4800 yards of offense in 2009. That means their offense would need to improve by 50 yards per game in 2010 to achieve both milestones. This would seem to be a tough, but doable task if current players improve enough.

3.) Boise State

There are no replacement problems here, as the Broncos return nearly their entire team. Do they meet the milestone test? Boise State produced 6300 yards of offense in 2009, and allowed 4203 yards on defense.

They would need to improve by about 16 yards per game to meet the second milestone, which seems like quite a reasonable goal. Here again we find another legitimate top-10 pick.

4.) Oregon

This team had players in place to fill all slots emptied for 2010. Did they meet the two milestones? Oregon allowed 4372 yards on defense in 2009; they would need to improve by about 30 yards per game. The Ducks produced 5356 yards of offense in 2009, so reaching 5500 yards in 2010 seems doable. Here again we find another legitimate pick. 

5.) Texas

The Colt McCoy era is over: Texas will have a new leader for 2010.

The Longhorns produced 5897 yards of offense with McCoy in 2009. There was about an 800-yard difference in production between McCoy's first year and 2009, so this is certainly an on-the-fence choice. 

6.) Florida

The loss of the heart and soul of their offensive and defensive units leaves this team unpredictable.

The last time Florida was faced with this situation, the offense was spectacular and had a Heisman winner. The defense was not so good: They allowed about 400 yards too much on defense, leading to four losses. This is certainly another on-the-fence pick.

7.) TCU

This team will have little problem filling the few emptied slots. They had the first ranked defense in the nation in 2009, while creating plenty of offense last season as well. This would seem to be another solid top-10 pick.

8.) Iowa

They will be back just as strong as ever in 2010. But how strong is that?

They produced 4372 yards of offense in 2009, over 1100 yards short of the 5500 yard milestone. This means about another 85 yards of offense is needed per game, a tall order. The reader can decide if this pick is solid.

9.) Nebraska

This pick surprised me. Nebraska barely made the defensive milestone in 2009 by allowing 3808 yards on defense, and they only produced 4500 yards with their 90th-ranked offense in 2009. The Cornhuskers will need to produce about 77 yards of offense per game to meet the offensive milestone. This is another goal that I see as hard to achieve.

10.) Wisconsin

This team also has most of its players back. They produced 5420 yards of offense in 2009, close to the offensive milestone. They met the goal on defense. This would seem to be a true top-10 pick.

This leaves me wondering about five of the top-10 picks. Oddly it would seem to be about the same number that preseason polls got wrong in 2009. I used this 2010 preseason poll to make the comparison.      

In my opinion, defense is the area that improves the fastest. Therefore, in an attempt to make a legitimate preseason poll for the 2010 season, I started on the offensive side with teams that met or came close in 2009 to the 5500 yard goal. I then adjusted for teams that lost many key playmakers.

I eliminated teams that were not within 100 yards per game of the defensive goal. Then I figured in for defense, and added teams that met the defensive goal. I then added teams that were close to both goals. The end result was quite different than other polls I am seeing.

1. TCU
2. Boise State
3. Oklahoma
4. BYU
5. Alabama
6. Wisconsin
7. Oregon
8. Oregon State
9. Texas
10. Auburn
11. Georgia Tech
12. Ohio State
13. Arkansas
14. Florida
15. Iowa
16. Virginia Tech
17. Clemson
18. USC
19. South Carolina
20. Nebraska
21. Penn State
22. Florida State
23. West Virginia
24. Georgia
25. LSU

They are actually in no particular order. They are simply teams that my research showed should be in the top 25 for 2010, or close.