Here's the top 25 from ESPN: 

 1. Penn State

 2. Clemson

 3. Texas

 4. Georgia

 5. Ohio State

 6. LSU

 7. Notre Dame

 8. Oregon

 9. Alabama

10. BYU

11. Illinois

12. Arizona State

13. South Carolina

14. Iowa State

15. SMU

16. Texas Tech

17. Indiana

18. Kansas State

19. Florida

20. Michigan

21. Miami

22. Louisville

23. Texas A&M

24. Ole Miss

25. Oklahoma

Break down by Conferences:

SEC- 9 (4 in top 10)

Big 10- 6 (3 in top 10)

Big 12- 5 (1 in top 10)

ACC- 4 (1 in top 10)

Ind- 1 (1 in top 10)

Some issues I have with this:

1) I don't think Penn State is #1

2) I think Georgia is a bit high

3) I think Alabama is a bit high.

4) I don't believe that Indiana or Oklahoma should be in the top 25.

5) I think South Carolina is bit high.

6) I think Miami is low. I think they should be in top 10.

7) I believe Oregon should be ranked higher.

8) Not sure about Illinois being the #11 ranked team.

What does everyone of the BGP college football guys think about this poll?

On 8/3/2025 at 7:41 PM, 16thBBall Fan said:

Some issues I have with this:

1) I don't think Penn State is #1

2) I think Georgia is a bit high

3) I think Alabama is a bit high.

4) I don't believe that Indiana or Oklahoma should be in the top 25.

5) I think South Carolina is bit high.

6) I think Miami is low. I think they should be in top 10.

7) I believe Oregon should be ranked higher.

8) Not sure about Illinois being the #11 ranked team.

What does everyone of the BGP college football guys think about this poll?

I agree with everything you said. I'll add that if Clemson beats LSU, they may go undefeated and be #1 all season after that.

Penn State should at worse go 10-2, even James Franklin can't screw up this regular season. 11-1 is a distinct possibility if they beat Oregon at home. That said, OSU wins the B1G.

Louisville is too low if you project out their season, they are likely to go somewhere between 9-3 and 11-1, which should put them anywhere from top 4 to no worse than 12-14 range.

 

We will know about Miami pretty quick. They open against Notre Dame and have Florida in week 3. We won't know anything about Louisville until the conference season opener in week 4. (Or will we? ?)

Absolutely no shot Penn State is the best team in the country. 

Same can be said about Clemson at #2. 

Notre Dame is historically overrated, this year is no different. 

BYU and Illinois? LOL

Louisville's ranking is fair, I wouldn't have them any higher at this point, but do think they are Top 25 worthy. They have the chance to climb the ranks throughout the season.

I can't begin to imagine Clemson being #2.  

On 8/4/2025 at 12:11 PM, Randy Parker said:

I can't begin to imagine Clemson being #2.  

Everyone cries about ESPN's SEC bias, so they put a B1G and ACC school at 1 and 2 to shut everyone up for a couple of weeks.

It doesn't matter who they have week 1 as #1, week 2 #1 will be the winner of the Texas/Ohio State game.

Penn State wins it all!

The topic of underrated/overrated fascinates me, mainly because I follow ND, and everyone says they're always overrated.  I did a little research to see how final rankings have compared to preseason rankings for most of the big-time programs (AP Poll). 

Finishing with a better ranking than preseason is underrated, finishing with a worse ranking is overrated, and then some teams finish the same (often indicating that they started and finished the year not ranked, but were ranked at some point during the season).  Results over the last 10 years, indicated by underrated-overrated-finished the same: 

Most Overrated:

In many years, Nebraska hasn't been ranked at all, but when they have, they have finished better than they started only once since 2006.

USC 2-7-1

Wisconsin 2-7 (1 year not ranked)

LSU 3-7

Oregon 2-6-2

Texas A&M 2-5-2 (1 year not ranked at any point)

Texas  3-4-2  (1 year not ranked)

 

Most Underrated:

Notre Dame  5-4-1

Florida  4-3-2 (1 year not ranked)

Miami  4-3-1  (2 years not ranked)

Oklahoma St.  4-4-2

Michigan  4-5-1

Clemson  4-5-1

Penn St.  4-5 (1 year not ranked)

Some conclusions:

3 teams are difficult to categorize: Bama, UGA, Ohio St...because they are so consistently ranked highly in the preseason poll.  All of them have a poor "record", but often that means something like starting at #2, and finishing at #4, which I wouldn't really consider "overrated".

ND isn't perennially overrated at all.  They used to be, but not in the last decade. 

The same 20 or so teams get ranked every preseason, and then you sprinkle in a few wild cards.

9 hours ago, Parrott said:

The topic of underrated/overrated fascinates me, mainly because I follow ND, and everyone says they're always overrated. 

The liberal use of the words underrated/overrated in sports might be my greatest pet peeve. I genuinely do not know if people understand what the terms mean.