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On Aug. 6, the first Coaches Poll for the 2020 College Football season came out. Rounding out the top five is Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and LSU. Florida ranked in the top ten at eighth.
Back Where They Were Last Year
This is the exact same ranking that Florida received in the preseason poll a year ago. Despite the improved record, despite the improved performance last season, preseason projections did not budge.
Recent schedule updates don’t seem to be a factor because the rankings look pretty standard for any year. Despite LSU losing Joe Burrow and Clyde Edwards-Helaire, they were ranked in the top five. Guess you got to give the defending national champs credit where it is due.
It will take actually playing out the season to expose any holes in top-ranked teams.
Not knowing every conference’s schedule makes it harder to predict how things might pan out for these teams. The new setup (conference-only schedules) will mean we will have to reevaluate how we judge teams following this poll. Can an SEC or Big Ten team get the usual two-loss punishment when cupcake teams are replaced with tougher competition on the schedule?
Maybe. Playing tougher teams doesn’t normally get rewarded. However, if everyone is losing a game or two because of the nature of this year’s schedule, maybe that changes. Can’t favor an undefeated team if there isn’t one. Strength of schedule is normally a tiebreaker when comparing records too.
In a year that is nothing short of weird, we can only expect the polls to get weird as well.
