ESPN preseason college football rankings: 3 overrated, 2 underrated teams

ESPN released its preseason college football rankings and a few teams are overrated while a couple stands out as being underrated entering the 2021 season.

While ESPN did a fine job ranking its top 25 teams heading into fall camp, there are a few college football programs that are either getting too much love or not enough.

Admittedly, nobody should have any big issues with their top 10. If you have Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State and Oklahoma in your top five in some order, that sounds about right. While Iowa State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Oregon and Texas A&M are the other teams inside of the top 10, ESPN may need to look again at where it has some teams in the teens and early 20s.

Here are three overrated teams and two underrated teams in ESPN’s preseason top 25 rankings.

College football rankings: 3 overrated teams, 2 underrated entering 2021 season

Overrated: No. 14 LSU Tigers

Should the LSU Tigers be ranked at the start of the season? Yes, but having the Bayou Bengals No. 14 overall is a bit too high. While LSU went undefeated en route to a perfect national championship-winning season in 2019, that was two seasons ago. LSU was a .500 team a year ago and will be without its starting quarterback Myles Brennan for possibly the entire season.

While the Tigers are probably still a top-six team in the SEC, Ole Miss has more promise entering the season in their own division. Even with a new starting quarterback in Emory Jones, cross-division rival Florida is better than them. Let’s not forget that Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M are all light years better than the Tigers entering this season. LSU should be in high teens at best.

Underrated: No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers

While the gap between Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten remains massive, why is the perceived second-best team in the Big Ten coming in at No. 16 in the Wisconsin Badgers? Last year was a weird one, to say the least up in Madison, but Paul Chryst’s team has a star under center in Graham Mertz. Wisconsin is the favorite to win the Big Ten West but lose in Indianapolis.

Though Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa and Penn State all find themselves in the 16-to-20-range in the rankings, only one of them is getting to the Big Ten title bout, and that is Wisconsin. If all goes well, Wisconsin is one of about five teams who have a realistic shot of making the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history this season. They should be about three spots higher.

Overrated: No. 13 USC Trojans

We do this every single year because we are dying for the USC Trojans to stop being decadent and start being a good football team again. While one can certainly argue for USC to be the favorite to win the Pac-12 South this season, they are a perennial 9-3 program for as long as Clay Helton remains their head coach. At least Kedon Slovis is the real deal at quarterback for the Trojans.

While only four Pac-12 teams are ranked inside of the top 25 by ESPN, that still feels like way too many. Oregon is the favorite to win it in Las Vegas, while Washington and Arizona State should be interesting. The problem is we are hoping USC can force its way into the top 10 and the playoff picture. Unfortunately, they are going to go 9-3 and finish ranked somewhere in the low-20s.

Underrated: No. 21 Texas Longhorns

As they prepare for life with 15 SEC schools hitting them with the Horns Down on the regular, the Texas Longhorns should be higher than No. 21. Steve Sarkisian is a massive upgrade at head coach over Tom Herman. While they should be viewed as the third-best team in the Big 12 and nothing more, Texas is closer to being back in the New Year’s Six than many of us want to begin to realize.

Assuming they can stop losing dumb games to TCU, Texas has the talent and the coaching staff to win all of their Big 12 games outside of the annual affairs vs. Iowa State and Oklahoma. A 10-2 (7-2) Texas team would be pushing towards the top 10 with a record like that. While they could finish the season unranked, Texas feels like a program that will finish somewhere around No. 15 or 16.

Overrated: No. 15 Miami Hurricanes

Don’t let Clemson’s dominance fool you. The ACC is not that good, and it will be exposed as such with Notre Dame out of the picture. While the Tigers are projected to get to the playoff for the seventh year in a row, Miami is not going to meet them in Charlotte. This is because the Hurricanes will have two losses on the year: vs. Alabama in Atlanta and at North Carolina.

While the Tar Heels are probably not a top-10 team at season’s end, Mack Brown will have his team playing in a New Year’s Six bowl. Can we say the same for Manny Diaz’s team? The U coming in at No. 15 is all about D’Eriq King being a superstar quarterback during his super-duper senior season. Though he can carry them, the third-best ACC team should be ranked around No. 20.

Again, this is what is great about college football. You can debate just about everything under the sun. We have touched on a team in each Power Five conference that is either overrated or underrated. Several fan bases are getting a bit too riled up, while others begin to pound their chests in pride. It is a beautiful thing. The only thing that matters is how they play on Saturday.

What did ESPN get wrong in their final preseason college football rankings for the 2021 season?

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