Is Texas getting too much benefit in preseason rankings?

Yahoo

6 hours ago

Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton discuss the Longhorns' placement atop the initial preseason AP poll and whether it's right.
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Video Transcript
The college football poll is out, the AP poll.
Now, we can have a total debate on whether or not there should even be an AP poll this early, but the AP poll is out.
The voters have spoken.
To no surprise, Texas is the number one team in all the land.
There's a lot to get to from this, uh, from this poll.
You see Texas #1, Penn State #2, which differs from the coaches poll.
Ohio State 3, Clemson 4, Georgia 5.
Caroline, I keep looking at Texas and I keep saying, man, we are giving a lot of benefit of the doubt to Arch Manning, who has played about 3 seconds of meaningful college football so far.
It is surprising to me that we are just allowing it to be a given that Arch, because of his last name and because of his recruiting ranking numbers, is suddenly gonna step in and be the single greatest college quarterback we've ever seen in Texas.
We'll be back.
And look, you might be.
Like I'm, I'm not gonna say it's completely out of the realm of possibility that Texas is very much so back and Arch Manning is one of the best college quarterbacks that we have ever seen.
Am I going to put money on it?
No, I'm not.
If I was a betting woman, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.
I think Texas is back.
They've been back to back Final Fours.
How much more back could you be other than winning a national championship?
That's a big that's a. other than, I'm not sure Texas fans agree.
Are we allowed to call you back when you simply make the Final Four, like Texas, Penn State, Jordan.
I, I don't know, Caroline.
Yeah, I, I think that you very much so can because Texas has been swimming in the sea of suck for decades.
That fits.
I don't even know if I really remember a time when Texas football was actually legitimately good in, in the championship conversation.
I mean, Texas was a miserable football program.
Now we're talking about Texas being one of the best teams in the country, one of the best recruiting teams in the country, with one of the smartest offensive minds at the head coach, and they're pretty much consistently a contender for a national championship and consistently in the college football playoff discussion.
So I say, yes, definitively, Texas is back.
Now, you got to win a national championship in In order to cap off this, you know, this span of spending in this.
Fan of winning that we have seen from Texas, and I understand.
Look, your thought about, are we just gonna give Texas the benefit of the doubt just because of who their quarterback is and just because they were a solid team last year and just because their coach is really easy to trust.
I, I, I understand those sentiments that there's a lot of just trust in this ranking, this preseason ranking for Texas.
But my question for you and anybody else who feels this way is, and who deserves to be number one, really.
I think this is a year in college football where it feels more open than any other year because to me, there is not one clear cut this team is significantly better than any other team in the field, because if you look at the AP top 10, #1, Texas, they're replacing their starting quarterback.
Number 3, Ohio State replacing a starting quarterback.
Number 5, 6, 7, 8, and number 10, that is Georgia, Notre Dame, Oregon, Alabama, and Miami, all replacing starting quarterbacks, and several of those teams are replacing coordinators.
Ohio State is replacing both their offensive and defensive coordinators.
We have so little consistency and continuity among the big brands and the best teams in football.
That's, I don't know who I trust to be the number one team in all the land.
So if not Texas, then who?
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