Riding the momentum of winning three of their final four games in 2014, Arkansas was picked No. 20 in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll that was released on Thursday. First-place votes receive 25 points, second-place votes get 24 and so on.
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Reigning national champion Ohio State tops the Amway Coaches poll, followed by TCU.
TCU and Alabama received one first-place vote each. Paced by No. 3 Alabama, eight SEC teams begin the season in the top 25; five of them represent the West Division.
The rest of the top-10 has Oregon fifth, Michigan State sixth, Auburn seventh, Florida State eighth, Georgia ninth and Southern California 10th. Surely part of this is that Baylor has to replace Bryce Petty while TCU still has Trevone Boykin, but if we’re ranking teams based on how 2015 will play out, Baylor is the better-known quantity this season.
SEC East teams Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee are also ranked.
Ohio State comes in at No. 1 in the nation with Michigan State and Wisconsin ranking No. 6 and No. 18 respectively.
Georgia, which finished last season ranked No. 9, will open this season in the same spot.
The Sooners are No. 19 in the opening coaches’ poll, and the Cowboys are not in the top 25 (they’d be No. 28 if the poll extended that far). Many speculate that the lack of a conference championship is a big reason why no Big 12 teams made it to the College Football Playoff last season.
Even before anyone hits the practice field for the start of fall camp, Alabama has already seen noted improvement in at least one area – its poll ranking.
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“What’s kind of fun is you know a year ago we weren’t in contention and the year before that we had no chance of being ranked in anything”, Bielema said during his speaking engagement at the Mercy Coaching Summit at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center. South Carolina, Florida, and Kentucky also received votes. That’s before the fact that they lose Winston and other of their top players to the draft, arrests, or kicked off the team.
