The pre-season AP Top 25 of 2020 for Monday was released on Monday, and the Associated Press decided to release the interview with all 130 FBS teams eligible, even those who already have their picks for the 2020 season . As such, it’s a bit tricky to get into arms about which teams are overestimated and underestimated and worried, my arms are still here, and I want to get into them all!
So I take a slightly different approach to my annual responses to the AP Top 25 poll this year. I will only review the rankings of the teams still planning to play this fall. It does not make much sense to call a team that does not play vocabulary or underrated, because I have the opportunity not to glow if I am correct, nor to mock you if I am wrong.
I look to the schools that will play in the AP Top 25 poll and those that will get votes and will judge based on that.
Overrated: No. 11 Auburn
When I responded to the Coaches Poll top 25 earlier this month, Auburn did not make the cut, but was on the south side. I went all the way back and forth between Auburn and his colleague SEC West School no. 13 Texas A&M. I chose Texas A&M to be considered overrated, and this time it’s Auburn’s turn. However, I’m not trying to be fair here. This is more a statement of intent.
Having Texas A&M at no. 13 in the top 25 of Coaches Poll made me feel a little high, but I also wrote a story in the offseasons in which I called the Aggies a darkhorse. I still believe a lot of what I wrote is true, even as the team’s schedule became tougher in the updated SEC version. But so did Auburn’s.
The truth is, if I choose between A&M or Auburn to be the team to expect in 2020 as above expectations, then I go with A&M. Crazy as it may seem to some, I have more confidence in Kellen Mond at quarterback than I do in Bo Nix. The accuracy of Nix’s throwing the ball last season was a real concern for me, and I’m not sure these issues can be ironed out over an unusual offseason that did not include spring practice. Chad Morris officially takes over, and although Morris is a creative thinker who knows how to use his staff, he is also a coach who likes to throw the ball.
That either Morris will have to adapt to Nix, or Nix will have to adapt to Morris. I think the former is the most likely scenario, because it is it that has a higher chance of success. It’s just, I do not know how much success it will lead.
That this is me, declaring myself officially skeptical about Auburn for the whole world to see.
Underrated: No. 25 Tennessee
I included the Vols as an underrated team in my Coaches Poll Comments because they were unranked. Well, they cracked the top 25 of the AP Top 25 poll, but they should be even higher.
If we look at the teams in the interview ranked higher than Tennessee who plan to play this fall, we see No. 23 Iowa State, No. 21 UCF and No. 20 Cincinnati directly above them. UCF and Cincinnati I will not play with it. The Bearcats won 11 games last season, and UCF has been a Group of Five powerhouse for a few years.
Iowa State went 7-6 last year and was 5-4 in the Big 12. Tennessee was 8-5 and went 5-3 in the SEC. That not only had Tennessee a better record, but it reached that record in the more difficult conference.
I have nothing against Iowa State, and I fully understand why people are high on them every year. But the Cyclones have not yet fully met those expectations. They started last season at no. 21 and have unranked the year. Iowa State has not completed a season in the AP Top 25 poll since 2000 when it was no. 25 wie. While I would bet a lot of money that ends straight this season (the AP will not continue with rankings of teams that do not play), I would also bet that Tennessee will finish higher.
This is one of those cases where I think there is a lot of assumption that it goes. We assume with a healthy trio of Spencer Sanders, Chuba Hubbard and Tylan Wallace that the Cowboys will win many games. It’s logical to make, because that’s a very talented trio that not many other teams in the Big 12 can match.
However, there is an error in that. The mistake is that Oklahoma State had that trio healthy for the first eight games of last season and was only 5-3. That, it’s not like this team was a juggernaut before injuries derailed the season. The Cowboys went 2-0 in games with both Sanders and Hubbard healthy, though the wins came at home against a 5-7 TCU team and a 3-9 Kansas. They were 1-2, with only Hubbard left, although the two losses came to Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
However, I’m not so convinced that Oklahoma State will be a better team than some of the others behind it. Especially in a Big 12 that maybe has no one who is really capable of defeating Oklahoma, but has a lot of depth after his second and third tiers.
Underrated: Unranked Kentucky
Do you remember last year when Kentucky suffered so many injuries at quarterback that it was forced to put wide receiver Lynn Bowden under center, leaving every semblance of a passing attack and it still manages to go 8-5? I think I was more impressed than AP voters. Well, this is not where I’ll tell you that Kentucky should have cracked the top 25 if the AP had included all 130 FBS schools in the preseason poll. It does not matter.
But there are a few teams out there in the land of ‘Other Receiving Voices’ who probably shouldn’t have to move forward. For example, the Louisville team that I remember beating Kentucky 45-13 last year, or maybe the Virginia Tech team that beat it in the Belk Bowl.
The Wildcats have won 18 games in the last two seasons, but are still treated like the .500 team they were a few years earlier.
Overrated Unranked Miami
Miami is not ranked in the top 25, but it is ranked for teams like Kentucky, Baylor and Virginia. The same Virginia that won the Miami division (although Miami did it 17-9, however).
This is a Miami team that ended the 2019 season with losses to Duke, FIU and Louisiana Tech. It’s a Miami team that has already lost one of its best players in Gregory Rousseau, who spent the season focusing on the NFL Draft.
This is the Miami team that started the 2017 season 10-0 and has gone 13-16 since. That’s the team we rank ahead of a team that played in the Orange Bowl last year (Virginia), a team that won 18 games over the past two seasons (Kentucky), and a team that won 11 games last year ( Baylor).
Having said all that, I understand why. Miami has a lot of talent, and it’s an exciting quarterback added in D’Eriq King. There is a chance that King will raise the floor of the official in Miami so high that the Canes continue with a strong season. But how about we prove it this time around first?
