Our Top 25 rankings have been out since June 9th and our top 50 before July. There have been a few edits as players were added or didn’t show up. We have run our model and laid eyes on every team’s roster, and now that the AP Poll is out, let’s see how they line up.
The AP Poll in my opinion is a superior poll to the Coaches Poll. I don’t think either is usually that great because I question how much effort the voters are putting into it. Have they seen every roster and poured over thousands of players? Probably not, especially the Coaches, or whatever assistant or staffer they have done it. Some coaches probably specify to throw coaching friends a bone or previous schools they worked at. The old Steve Spurrier voting Duke Football top 25 every year joke. You can’t be completely objective regardless as a coach or likely that informed on every team.
If you want our previews, rankings, stats, and more in-depth reasons for why we rank each team where you can check them out here.
Let’s first take a look at the AP Top 25 (44 receiving votes)
AP Top 25
1
N. Carolina
2
Gonzaga
3
Houston
4
Kentucky
5
Baylor
5
Kansas
7
Duke
8
UCLA
9
Creighton
10
Arkansas
11
Tennessee
12
Texas
13
Indiana
14
TCU
15
Auburn
16
Villanova
17
Arizona
18
Virginia
19
San Diego St
20
Alabama
21
Oregon
22
Michigan
23
Illinois
24
Dayton
25
Texas Tech
26
Texas A&M
27
UConn
28
Miami
29
Purdue
30
Saint Louis
31
Michigan State
32
Florida State
33
Xavier
34
Wyoming
35
Ohio State
36
Iowa
37
Rutgers
38
Florida
39
USC
40
Toledo
41
Virginia Tech
42
Memphis
43
Notre Dame
44
UAB
Here were our Rankings
TR Top 25
1
Gonzaga
2
North Carolina
3
Kentucky
4
Houston
5
Baylor
6
Texas
7
Tennessee
8
UCLA
9
Kansas
10
Indiana
11
Miami
12
Arkansas
13
Arizona
14
Duke
15
San Diego St
16
Auburn
17
TCU
18
Oklahoma
19
Alabama
20
Xavier
21
Dayton
22
Oregon
23
UConn
24
Florida
25
Creighton
26
St Louis
27
Texas A&M
28
Iowa
29
Missouri
30
UAB
31
Wyoming
32
LSU
33
Virginia
34
Texas Tech
35
Illinois
36
Ohio State
37
Oklahoma State
38
Villanova
39
Providence
40
Memphis
41
Wisconsin
42
Purdue
43
Michigan
44
Iowa State
Ranking Differences by Number
Overall, it’s closer than I would have expected. 24 of the 44 teams there was a lot of agreement on, all ranking with in 4 spots in both polls. Now let’s take a look at where the major differences were.
Higher On
Spots Difference
Miami
17
Florida
14
UAB
14
Xavier
13
Iowa
8
Texas
6
These are the teams I believe a lot more in. I can understand why some may not have Miami as high as I do, but I stand behind that pick. I’m a much bigger believer in Nijel Pack than most. For the rest of the teams you can read about why we are high on in our previews.
Lower on
Spots Difference
Toledo
73
USC
30
Rutgers
27
Florida State
24
Villanova
22
Michigan
21
Notre Dame
18
Virginia
17
Michigan State
17
Creighton
16
Purdue
13
Illinois
12
Texas Tech
9
Duke
7
Toledo must be one of those joke votes which discredits the rankings in my opinion. They lost Ryan Rollins to the NBA as the 44th draft pick and only had a NET ranking of 86th with him. We talk about them in our Mid Major Preview. A vote in the top 25 is ridiculous. I haven’t got a lot else to say on the rest of the list. They are all covered as to why we rank them where we do in our Top 50 or conference previews. Check them out if you want to the argument. The cool thing is we can see who is right at the end of the year.