NCAA Football Top 25, post week 1

Preseason rankings, while typically laughably wrong, are unfortunately not entirely worthless. They can have a huge impact on what happens in the BCS in the latter stages of the year, which is why it’s so maddening to see the voters get things wrong to start the season.

Because of my hate for preseason rankings, I didn’t give mine this year. Sure, I ranked the Big Ten, but that’s different than telling you who the best 25 teams in the nation are. With one week of fantastic football finally out of the way, though, we have long looks at every team and can start to formulate where they belong in the national rankings.

The first thing you’ll notice about my rankings is they won’t be very detailed – an explanation to start things off, and then just the list. I don’t have time this year to go in depth on each team, but trust me, I have reasons for ranking teams where I do, even if I’m not explicitly stating them here.

To start, I thought from the minute the preseason rankings were released that it was ridiculous for Florida, Oklahoma, and Nebraska to be ranked so highly. After opening weekend, I was right on two of those. Florida mustered just 26 yards in the first three quarters against a team they should have beaten by 50, and Oklahoma barely survived Utah State. Even though they won’t be dropped to #10 and #11 by the national media, these two aren’t really Top 10 worthy at this point, and I ranked them accordingly.

Some teams that needed to impress did – Alabama, Ohio State, Boise State, TCU, Iowa, Florida State, to name a few – and some teams disappointed – previously mentioned Florida and Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, and unranked Ole Miss and Kansas – leaving us with a better picture of who belongs where.

One final note. The USC Trojans will not make an appearance in my rankings once this year. They can’t play in a bowl and can’t affect the BCS (outside of screwing the Pac-10 over by beating up on everybody), so I see no reason to rank them.

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

Next five in: Oregon State, Stanford, BYU, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame