Sit down if you’re standing up – if you’re sitting down, stand up and sit back down again… the Alabama Crimson Tide are the #1 team in the first release of the 2013 preseason USA Today Coaches Poll (shocked face).
If the sarcasm wasn’t thick enough to jump through the screen, this news comes as no surprise as the Crimson Tide are on the heels of back-to-back BCS Championship titles, and three out of the last four. Alabama returns several starters, most notably QB A.J. McCarron who definitely has the experience.
Back at #2 in the preseason poll are the Ohio State Buckeyes who received three first-place votes. Ohio State was not eligible to be ranked or play in a preseason game last year due to NCAA penalties enforced on them. Ohio State finished the season 12-0. The Buckeyes are expected to be in the title picture going into the 2013 season.
A pair of Pac-12 teams follow at #3 and #4 – the Oregon Ducks and Stanford Cardinal respectively.
1. Alabama Crimson Tide (58)
2. Ohio State Buckeyes (3)
3. Oregon Ducks
4. Stanford Cardinal
5. Georgia Bulldogs
6. Texas A&M Aggies (1)
7. South Carolina Gamecocks
8. Clemson Tigers
9. Louisville Cardinals
10. Florida Gators
11. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
12. Florida State Seminoles
13. LSU Tigers
14. Oklahoma State Cowboys
15. Texas Longhorns
16. Oklahoma Sooners
17. Michigan Wolverines
18. Nebraska Cornhuskers
19. Boise State Broncos
20. TCU Horned Frogs
21. UCLA Bruins
22. Northwestern Wildcats
23. Wisconsin Badgers
24. USC Trojans
25. Oregon State Beavers
Rounding out the top-five are the Georgia Bulldogs who return 10 of 11 starters on offense, including QB Aaron Murray – a team that finished just a breath away from playing for the championship last season.
Overall Assessment: Not bad… pretty much as expected. If there is a surprise, it would be Stanford however a lot of pundits have been making noise about the Cardinal in the off-season. Can they live up to that hype, or are they this year’s USC?
Getting outside of the top-5 teams, the SEC is well represented. Again, this is probably something you would have expected – winning the last seven BCS National Championships will do that for you…
In fact, the SEC makes up for half of the top-ten teams in the first poll of 2013. Teams like Texas A&M (6), South Carolina (7), and Florida (10) are firmly seated.
LSU was the last Southeastern Conference team to make the poll at #13 overall.
Teams by conference: SEC (6), Pac-12 (5), Big Ten (5), Big 12 (4), ACC (2), Independents (1), AAC (1), MWC (1)