Most Overrated Teams Based on Preseason Rankings This Century

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A_Slab_of_Bacon

A_Slab_of_Bacon

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I dug into preseason AP Polls in the 21st century and found some interesting trends

Who do we overrated too often?
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In other words, how often do teams in the 21st century finish worse than where they started in the AP Top 25? Here are the percentages for the first batch of teams I ran through (the higher the percentage means the more overrated a team is):

  • Nebraska: 91%
  • Notre Dame: 82%
  • Michigan: 79%
  • Miami: 70%
  • Tennessee: 67%
  • Texas: 63%
  • Georgia: 58%
  • USC: 56%
  • Auburn: 54%
Click to expand...
 




I think it's a little misleading because if you start near the top many years, it's much easier to go down than up. Since 2010, Alabama has finished worse in the AP 60% of the time.
 


GophersInIowa said:
I think it's a little misleading because if you start near the top many years, it's much easier to go down than up. Since 2010, Alabama has finished worse in the AP 60% of the time.
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It is, and the amount isn't accounted for here.

On the other hand if you're at 91% and often you're straight out of the top 25 .... that probabbly is pretty telling.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It is, and the amount isn't accounted for here.

On the other hand if you're at 91% and often you're straight out of the top 25 .... that probabbly is pretty telling.
Click to expand...
For sure. It would be interesting to see what percentage for each one was a drop of 1-3 spots and what was a drop more than that. Dropping from #2 to #3 isn't really a big deal, especially compared to if you dropped from #2 to #20.
 

GophersInIowa said:
For sure. It would be interesting to see what percentage for each one was a drop of 1-3 spots and what was a drop more than that. Dropping from #2 to #3 isn't really a big deal, especially compared to if you dropped from #2 to #20.
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Yeah, points for dropping out of the top 10 to ... 25+ would be pretty big.

Less so from 2 to 9 or something.
 

It would be interesting to see the average difference between each team's initial ranking and final ranking. Hard when only the top 25 teams are ranked to tell who really over/under acheives.
 



In the last two or three years WI was ranked near the top in the preseason but their QB Hornibrook poisoned the locker room and was worse than the prior year.
That was the season MN thrashed them in WI.
 

Plato said:
In the last two or three years WI was ranked near the top in the preseason but their QB Hornibrook poisoned the locker room and was worse than the prior year.
That was the season MN thrashed them in WI.
Click to expand...
Was that a thing?

Wisc always seems like one of those programs without a lot of player vs player or vs coach darama.
 

The word was he had carnal relations with the girl friend of a team mate. Said team mate gave Hornibrook his second concussion the year in a bar after finding out.
At the end of the season he was told he would not be the starting QB next year so he left for FLST and played some when starting QB went down for a while.
 

Plato said:
The word was he had carnal relations with the girl friend of a team mate. Said team mate gave Hornibrook his second concussion the year in a bar after finding out.
At the end of the season he was told he would not be the starting QB next year so he left for FLST and played some when starting QB went down for a while.
Click to expand...

Maybe his name should be "Horny-brook".
 



I looked only at the last 3 seasons. What I did was take the final AP rankings and compared it to the Pres-season. If a team was receiving votes I counted that ranking as well. If a team did not receive votes in one of the polls then I just gave them a rank just outside the number of teams receiving votes. For example; if 39 teams received votes then if a team did not receive votes they would rank 40th.

Biggest drops in last 3 years:
2018 Wisconsin (4th to 38th)
2017 Florida State (3rd to 35th)
2018 Miami (8th to 32nd)
2018 Mich State (11th to 40th)
2018 USC (15th to 40th)
2017 Michigan (11th to 35th)

Biggest jumps in last 3 years:
2017 UCF (45th to 6th)
2019 Baylor (48th to 13th)
2018 Wash State (45th to 10th)
2018 Kentucky (42nd to 12th)
2018 Syracuse (45 to 15th)
2019 Minnesota (39th to 10th)
2017 Mich State (44th to 15th)
 

Saw the thread title and immediately thought, "Nebraska."

But they'll still be ranked in multiple preseason predictions.
 

I immediately think of the 2012 USC team that started No. 1 in the preseason poll.
 

Not really that surprising to me. When I looked at the list, my immediate thought was "helmet schools." Those are the kind of programs that always seem near the top of the recruiting rankings and for that, and other reasons, seem to be consistently on the radar of the sporting press. As a result, I think they get an unwarranted up-tick by those doing the rankings.
 

In recent years no question in my mind 2018 Wisconsin. SI covers, slobbering BTN crews calling them best WI team ever, 4 of 5 linemen predicted to be drafted after the season, high preseason rating and CFP talk.
 



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