2021 Pre-season rankings and projected win-loss records

After a many-year hiatus I've brought back the pre-season rankings, with two goals: 1) leveraging the work of others to make the reviews about 5% as much work, and 2) using last year's bizarre season to my advantage to come up with some more interesting rankings than you might be seeing elsewhere. More accurate? We'll have to wait and see.

Instead of doing the months of legwork compiling and tracking returning players and production I'm leveraging Bill Connelly's work at ESPN on his SP rankings. Over there he came up with figures for returning production on both offense and defense; I've used these in conjunction with our Strength power rating numbers from last season to project team quality this year. We also use recruiting rankings from the last two classes, determined via data from 247 Sports.

And instead of a huge, in-depth article for each team, there's just a small summary. For more info see Connelly's previews, or check out Phil Steele's always superb preview magazine which I normally used for the lion's share of data on returning players. For our previews we list the team's projected record, offense and defense rankings, their recruiting ranking, and then elaborate with short sections:

• Verdict: How the team is projected to fare
• Schedule: Which games we think they'll win and lose, and
• Hope: What is the team's best-case scenario?

Note that last year's weirdness (due to Covid) is reflected in many of the projections for this season. We decided to let it be and disregard concerns over small sample size and lack of inter-conference play, and let that be our unique take on things going forward. Who wants to see the exact same list on every site?

Here is our pre-season top 130 with team-by-team reviews:

1. Alabama     [view previews for Top 25]
2. Oklahoma
3. Clemson
4. Arizona State
5. Iowa State
6. Wisconsin
7. Iowa
8. Miami
9. Georgia
10. Ohio State
11. Indiana
12. Toledo
13. Ball State
14. Texas A&M
15. North Carolina
16. Mississippi
17. Western Michigan
18. Central Michigan
19. Coastal Carolina
20. UCLA
21. Cincinnati
22. Penn State
23. Oklahoma State
24. Auburn
25. Louisiana-Lafayette
26. Minnesota     [view previews for teams #26 - #50]
27. Notre Dame
28. TCU
29. Eastern Michigan
30. Texas
31. Miami Ohio
32. BYU
33. Rutgers
34. Kent State
35. Maryland
36. Florida
37. Wake Forest
38. Arkansas
39. Buffalo
40. Utah
41. Northwestern
42. Nebraska
43. Michigan
44. San Jose State
45. LSU
46. Mississippi State
47. Boise State
48. Baylor
49. USC
50. Pittsburgh
51. North Carolina State   [view previews for teams #51-#75]
52. Nevada
53. Oregon
54. Appalachian State
55. Boston College
56. Liberty
57. West Virginia
58. Virginia Tech
59. Purdue
60. Wyoming
61. Washington State
62. Northern Illinois
63. UCF
64. California
65. Ohio
66. Virginia
67. Kentucky
68. Hawai'i
69. Tulane
70. Washington
71. Missouri
72. Troy
73. Tulsa
74. Illinois
75. Houston
76. Colorado       [view previews for teams #76-#100]
77. Georgia State
78. East Carolina
79. Kansas State
80. San Diego State
81. Memphis
82. UAB
83. Louisville
84. Oregon State
85. Marshall
86. Tennessee
87. Texas Tech
88. UTSA
89. Michigan State
90. SMU
91. Fresno State
92. Army
93. Air Force
94. Georgia Tech
95. Syracuse
96. Rice
97. Florida State
98. Stanford
99. Florida Atlantic
100. Colorado State
101. Arkansas State   [view previews for teams #101 to #130]
102. Georgia Southern
103. Vanderbilt
104. South Alabama
105. UNLV
106. South Carolina
107. New Mexico
108. Southern Miss
109. Texas State
110. Middle Tennessee State
111. Arizona
112. Florida International
113. South Florida
114. Akron
115. Louisiana Tech
116. North Texas
117. Duke
118. Utah State
119. Navy
120. Western Kentucky
121. Bowling Green
122. Charlotte
123. Kansas
124. Temple
125. Louisiana-Monroe
126. UTEP
127. Old Dominion
128. Connecticut
129. Massachusetts
130. New Mexico State