247 Sports preseason football cumulative Top-25 rankings
247 came out with a cumulative top-25 preseason ranking list based on the preseason polls from 247Sports, CBS Sports, ESPN, Fox Sports, Athlon and The Sporting News. Each team was awarded 25 points for a #1 vote, 24 for #2, ...
Michigan comes in ranked at #2, with the following snippet:
2. MICHIGAN WOLVERINES
Cumulative points: 141
The word: Ranked no lower than No. 3 on any of these chosen preseason polls, the Wolverines are the favorite to win their third consecutive Big Ten Championship this season and get back to the College Football Playoff. Jim Harbaugh has lost his last six bowl games at Michigan, so that's a statistic that needs to change. He's expecting this 2023 team to be his strongest considering Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards return in the backfield along with potential All-Big Ten signal caller JJ McCarthy.
I try not to put too much stock into preseason rankings, but damn it’s hard not to be hyped for the 2023 season.
TAMU is notably absent from the rankings. Is this the year their 'best of all time' 2022 recruiting class starts to pay off? Any teams you see on here that are out of place (too high or too low) in your early opinions?
March 20th, 2023 at 12:52 PM ^
Been burned by the hype machine too many times from 1989-2007. Excited. And Cautious.
Didn't like half of TAMU's million-dollar-a-recruit class enter the transfer portal? I'd like to see the end of both Jimbo Fisher and Steve Sarkisian in 2023. A real Texas faceplant.
I knew they had some transfers, but I didn’t think it was half.
Just glancing at 247 it looks like 2 of the 8 5 stars transferred, and 5 of the 19 4 stars transferred. A class with 6 remaining 5 stars and 14 remaining 4 stars is still pretty crazy. Maybe this info is dated?
Don’t forget about the impact that S&C and coaching have on player development.
Half of their territory transferred to Michigan in CFB Risk 😆
Jimbo's deal is almost as ironclad as that ACC Grant of Rights deal. The hype machine this year feels warranted for us though.
To be fair, from 1989-1993, and in some of the Lloyd years, if there was a CFP, we would've been in it. The game I'm most worried about is @PSU. We win that, I feel good about going into The Game 11-0 again.
I hear you. But, UM has gone 23-1 in the last 2 regular seasons. It should have been 24-0. There were some dogfights with breaks that went our way (Rutgers/Nebraska/PSU in 21, Illinois in 22). We had our hands full all those games, and prevailed. A bad break here or there, can dramatically change that. Other than the MSU game that was stolen, we haven't really had too many bad breaks in the regular season. Of course the schedule is pretty cush.
And TAMU has endless money. They wouldn't hesitate to fire Fisher with another dumpster fire year or two.
March 21st, 2023 at 12:04 PM ^
I think @PSU is the most likely loss as well but unless they beat OSU, that game doesn't really matter. It will still all come down to The Game, as the universe intended.
Only the criminals.
My first memorable burn by the preseason hype machine was 1981.
reading a street & smith's college football preview magazine in the summer. no internet. no blogs. no HTTV. times were tough back then.
March 20th, 2023 at 11:12 PM ^
Sometimes I miss it. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or legitimate. It was fun when the magazines started coming out. Street and smith, Lindy’s, Phil Steele, Athlon, SI etc. You could still learn about the new guys but intrigue remained. It was fun to see their rankings going into the year, Heisman hopefuls and all America teams. If you go around the interwebs now you get almost too much info and start micro-analyzing everything. It’s almost too much, clouds rational judgement. Knowing a guy is a little immature in high school or something similar isn’t knowledge I should really have or need to know about some random person.
Those were cool times when those mags came out !!!
in a significant way, seth/brian/alex et al's HTTV is the true equivalent to those magazines. the fact that we can get HTTV in print makes it even better, at least in my house, as the boys pass them around for a month. granted, it's nearly completely focused on michigan and the B10, but what they do is nothing short of tremendous and is 10X deeper than our old lindy's/street & smith's and all the rest.
Yessir, they should’ve bought Bitcoin instead. A much better roi.
March 20th, 2023 at 12:58 PM ^
Preseason rankings tend to be heavily biased by the previous season. For that and other reasons, they are to be ignored. We have plenty of legitimate reasons to be hyped for this coming season, but I scoff at the Texas A&M ranking, as well as any ranking not involving the elite or the garbage.
I agree, and I find Michigan's hype and ranking a lot more palatable considering we are the only Top 5 team with a returning starter @ QB...and an elite one at that.
i wish we were criminally underrated, like 10th or 15th. stay off the radar. work hard. don't read the hype.
(gritty, lunch pail, gym rat type of season....)
It often seems to be the case in our best seasons that we're overlooked preseason: 1997, 2006, 2011, 2018, 2021, 2022.
Not sure when the last time we were expected to be good and actually were. Maybe 2016. Maybe 2003 but both of those seasons we still lost 2 games.
March 20th, 2023 at 12:58 PM ^
Cant wait, it's a 2 game season. Only PSU and OSU can touch them. The other 10 games will be double digit wins.
Have you ever watched a Michigan Football season? Or any college team? There is no way every win besides those two are double digit wins.
I think the spread on all games aside from PSU and OSU may actually be double digits. Depending on whether they implode or stabilize, at MSU might be a little tighter than that.
If you go by SP+ all the spreads outside of those 2 games is >14 points. I'm sure someone will backdoor a sub 10 point margin but everyone needs to relax. This team is loaded, the Big Ten stinks, there is no out of conference threat. The toughest non PSU/OSU game on paper is @Minnesota whom they should stomp.
There will be a stupid game or two. The spreads will all be double digits but the outcomes won't be.
A sleepy late September game vs Rutgers has stupid written all over it. Or a sandwich game @Maryland in between @PSU and home vs OSU.
There will be 1 or 2 stupid games for sure. It won't be Maryland IMO - we have them in November, and November Maryland is ass until proven otherwise.
Rutgers, I agree, is a prime candidate. I'm gonna guess that Minnesota or Nebraska will be the other. Neither of those teams is bringing back a ton, but both of those teams will be playing at home with house money.
Gattis is licking his chops. He desperately wanted to be HC.
Good thing he's a terrible OC. Effort doesn't matter if you just don't know what you're doing.
Did you fall asleep during the Illinois game we should have lost?
You mean the game where rested all their players and clearly didn't focus because OSU was next week? Also there is no team from the west on their schedule THIS year as good as last year Illinois. Have faith in this awesome team we are about to watch.
Not sure that they rested anybody. Edwards maybe. Morris never really came back from the Nebraska game and Corum got hurt in that game. They also played really poorly. I am the first to say they should be favored by double digits in all these games aside from the big 2 but let's not act like at MSU or at Maryland the week before OSU will be walk in the park games. We will be sweating bullets on some Saturday afternoon during a stupid game in the fall for sure.
Also there is no team from the west on their schedule THIS year as good as last year Illinois.
Maybe, but we didn't think that about Illinois in March of last year either.
Nailed it. In reality, we may be favored by double digits every game. But that does not mean that we will win by double digits. Upsets/mistakes/turnovers happen. Big time players have bad games. DItto a few of their players have the best games of their careers.
Upsets happen all time time. It is safe to assume that Michigan will NOT win all those games by double digits.
Not sure that anyone thought Illinois was going to be good at the start of the year.
Road games in CFB have the potential to be problems every year. At least one of @NE, @MN, @MSU & @MD will be closer than one might think in the preseason. Of course, UM should be favored but ish happens.
Well, NE really couldn't be worse.
NE may be the worst of the 4 on paper and UM gets them early in the year (Rhule's magic won't have taken hold yet). But time will tell.
If it really turns out to be a 2 game season, then it's probably only a 1 game season - Ohio State. Lose to PSU in (what I'm guessing is) mid-season and win every other game - including OSU - and I'd say they are at least 50-50 to get into the playoff.
There is always at least 1 other game where a team unexpectedly gives us a really tough game. Illini last year, MSU the year before, everyone the year before that... Generally, though, PSU and OSU are going to be the big ones.
Spartina is always a big game. Really the most passionate.
March 20th, 2023 at 12:59 PM ^
Detroit Lions are placed too low. Great off season so far.
UM...just beat Ohio.
Echoing what has been said these are preseason rankings for a reason and shouldn't be taken with much value but it is still nice to see UM be considered a playoff team not as a fluke.
Also, TAMU not being ranked isn't a surprise because a lot of that talent has transferred out and they're not that well coached anyway. Jimbo did give up OC duties to Bobby Petrino so if nothing else it'll be fun seeing if Jimbo isn't stabbed in the back in the sidelines.
Will we be the favorite in every game? Or will @ PSU be underdog role. I could see us being favored in every game. Still going to be a tough schedule to run.
The real question for me is how many would be ok losing a game missing the Big Ten Championship but winning a Natty? I'd take it in a second. I'd like both but I'd rather see us win the college football playoff as we've won the Big Ten the last couple years. I think this team on rep gets in with a loss.
Obviously, losing the BIG and winning the natty is like missing lotto 47and hitting powerball.
Rated too highly: Florida State at 7, lol, Tennessee slightly, and neither North Carolina nor TCU finish the season ranked.
Rated too low: UCLA and KSU.
At least two big questions about Tennessee:
- have they learned that defense, especially the secondary, is important?
- can Milton give them even half the production as Hooker at QB?
Milton was nails in the Orange Bowl.
No as to the whole defense thing.
Milton will have plenty on film to dissect by time the meat of SEC season starts. Plus, the entire conference will have seen two years of Heupel's offense. They may end the season ranked, but I doubt they'll figure into the conference/national picture.
Have to go PSU and East Landfill. Even with Kevin Warren gone the officials will try and give the game to Staee if it is close.
Is there any reason at all to think Sparty will improve at all?
If TUCK COMIN is fired by the time we meet, they will improve on the field. But not in the tunnel.