Breaking Down Our Top 25

by the Front Porch Football Top 25 Committee

One of the best and most entertaining aspects of college football lies within the rankings. In no other sport do seasonal rankings matter as much as they do in college football. Unfortunately, they have become broken. One reason alone stands for why these rankings are so broken: the preseason rankings. The preseason rankings, which essentially are based off of spring games, recruiting rankings, and prestige, carry weight for the entire season. It would be one thing if the preseason rankings carried no weight. It’s a whole other thing when most of the AP Poll Voters are slaves to those preseason rankings. Many voters refuse to reward good performance. “The seventh ranked team in the country had a massive conference win? I wish I could do something with that but in the summer we determined that (fill in the blank) was the sixth ranked team in the country and they haven’t lost yet so I can’t move the seventh ranked team up.” At Front Porch Football, we think that logic is garbage.

The system has become so skewed that the College Football Playoff Committee has elected that the only fair way to have a playoff is if they get to hit the reset button and create their own rankings in November. Imagine if you were to erase all rankings right now and it didn’t matter what anyone was ranked last week. Would Alabama be ranked number 1? Clemson 2? Auburn 6 spots from its rival at 7? We aren’t waiting to hit that reset button. Here is our top 25.

When you look at Auburn, you see a team that is firing on all cylinders. This offense is humming with Gus Malzhan calling the plays. In last week’s dominating win over Mississippi State, Bo Nix threw for over 300 yards passing and Auburn’s rushing attack had six touchdowns. This defense is playing at an elite level right now ranking inside the top 25 in both rush defense and scoring defense. This defensive line is one of the best in the country. Having passed early season tests against Oregon, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State, Auburn deserves the top ranking. The question will be whether they keep that ranking with games against Florida, LSU, Georgia, and Alabama all still left on this schedule.

LSU is clearly one of the top three teams in the country, in our opinion. Joe Burrow is putting up Heisman-worthy numbers, the LSU offense is the top scoring offense in the country (did you ever think you would read that?), and the Tigers have maybe the most impressive win of the season on the road at Texas. LSU deserves that ranking. Georgia and LSU are almost interchangeable. Georgia beat a salty Notre Dame team and remains unbeaten. Look for the Dawgs to pick up the pace in conference play.

Alabama and Clemson have both looked impressively unimpressive. Think about this for a second. They both have struggled at times this season, Clemson almost losing to a 2-2 North Carolina team. But they both look good doing it. I know it doesn’t make sense, and they deserve to fall in the rankings because of their somewhat lackluster starts, but you know that both of these teams have the horses to get it done. Neither team will stay where they are for long.

Rankings 6-9 should seem pretty uncontroversial. All four of those teams are elite teams that are looking for the top tier teams to start beating each other up. Penn State at 10 may seem a bit generous, but we are high on this Nittany Lion defense.

Florida has a shot to sky rocket up this top 25, but as for now, the Gators have not impressed us (even in staying undefeated) as the other top 10 teams. Texas and Oregon, like Notre Dame, remains highly ranked despite suffering an early season loss because they were good losses (as much as a team can have a good loss). 14-17 are products of nobody really knowing much about them. All four are solid teams that will sniff the 9-10 win mark, and in Boise State’s case surpass that mark, but not a single one of these programs will crack the top 8 by season’s end. Wake Forest is playing good football. Waiting for the collapse.

This section is devoted towards teams that deserve your respect and teams that don’t deserve your respect. UCF and Michigan ran their mouths all offseason about how they had a legitimate shot at making the College Football Playoff. No you don’t and it’s already been proven. Virginia and Appalachian State deserve your respect. These are two teams that have tangled with the big boys. Virginia traveled to South Bend and showed the country that the only difference between Notre Dame and Virginia is an offensive line. Appalachian State went into Chapel Hill and handled a North Carolina team that beat South Carolina and Miami and almost beat Clemson. Both teams are worthy of top 25 rankings. Army remains in the top 25 despite playing nobody and losing (in overtime) to Michigan because we watch a lot of Army football. Army is a top 25 team.