Everyone does a preseason top 25 poll.
And when your poll doesn't square with what everyone else predicts then you're clearly biased against their favorite team.
So as a preliminary, if your team isn't ranked highly enough it's clearly because I hate your team, player, or coach and I'm also gay, sexist, and racist.
Now that we've knocked that out of the way.
My BCS title game prediction is Alabama vs. Oregon. That's why I have the Tide and the Ducks number one and two in the preseason top 25.
Some of you will note that I took Georgia at 25-1 to win the BCS title and assert this is a conflict. It's not. I believe Georgia winning a BCS title offers the best gambling value of any team in college football. That's not because I believe the Bulldogs are more likely to win the title than Alabama. It's simply because I believe Georgia offers the best risk/reward on the gambling markets. Alabama is much more likely to win the BCS title than Georgia is. But if these two teams advance to the SEC title game -- as I'm projecting they will -- I think we'll see another very tight SEC title game. Bama would probably be around a touchdown favorite. Does Bama deserve to be 8x as likely to win the BCS title as Georgia. No way. So I like the Georgia bet better than I do the Alabama bet.
That's why it's important to distinguish between my picks based on market valuations and my picks based on straight up winners. Most of the time I try to pick against the spread here on Outkick because I know that lots of you guys gamble. Last year we had a great season picking against the spread. I went 44-21 against the spread, won both my over and under season win total picks, and jumped on Bama at 6-1 after the Tide lost to A&M. So if you followed my picks, you made quite a bit of money. Will I be as successful in 2013? That's highly doubtful. But I'll try.
My preseason top five is the five teams that I favor to win every game this season. Every other team in college football will be an underdog at least once this year. I'm using my own predicted spreads as a rough outline of where I think the top teams should be ranked. That is, Stanford will be favored in every game all season except for the Oregon game so i have them at six. South Carolina will be favored in every game all season except for the Georgia game so I have them at seven.
Texas A&M will be underdogs against Alabama and, I'm projecting, on the road at LSU so the Aggies are eight.
Clemson will be an underdog just twice, against both Georgia and South Carolina so I have them at nine in my preliminary rankings. But I also bumped them down two notches because I believe both LSU and Florida would be favored over Clemson on a neutral field.
LSU will be an underdog at Georgia and at Alabama. Florida will be an underdog three times: at LSU, against Georgia in the cocktail party, and at South Carolina, but the Gators will be favored over Florida State head-to-head.
Texas is, I believe, the most likely team to win the Big 12 so I have them ranked the next highest at 13. But the Big 12 is a complete mess right now and it's hard to project exactly what the conference will look like coming into the final month of the season. So I have most of these teams pretty jumbled together between 13 and 19. You'll note that I rank Baylor higher than most. Look at the Baylor schedule. If they can win at Kansas State and at Kansas, the Bears should be 7-0 with a home date against Oklahoma. At 7-0 Baylor would have climbed to the top ten in the country and be poised to make major noise the rest of the way. That's why I think Baylor's likely to win 9 games in 2013.
And with that here is Outkick's 2013 preseason top 25.
I'm sure you'll agree with every ranking:
1. Alabama
2. Oregon
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
5. Louisville
6. Stanford
7. South Carolina
8. Texas A&M
9. LSU
10. Florida
11. Clemson
12. Florida State
13. Texas
14. Nebraska
15. Michigan
16. Oklahoma State
17. Baylor
18. TCU
19. Oklahoma
20. Boise State
21. Northwestern
22. Notre Dame
23. Miami
24. Oregon State
25. Ole Miss
...
In other news, here's part of our College Football Preview show on Fox Sports that became the first ever show on the new Fox Sports 1 channel.
I'm talking about Uncle Nate, shirtless Steve Spurrier, and Mack Brown's future.
Hopefully you enjoy it.
And if you don't enjoy me -- or my faulty earpiece, damn you earpiece! -- at least Erin Andrews is here with me.
We've got a little beauty and the beast college football edition going.
