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Who's the best college football team in the country? Based on the Internet's many Top 25 preseason rankings, it's either the USC Trojans, Alabama Crimson Tide or LSU Tigers up top, followed by the Oklahoma Sooners or Oregon Ducks. Based on all of them compiled together -- or at least the ones I've chosen to compile below -- it's the defending national champs followed by the defending SEC champs, and wouldn't it be something to see a rematch of the rematch? (No, nobody wants to see that.)
Breeze through the 2012 Top 25 with Bill Connelly and Dan Rubenstein!
It's time for an updated look at the wisdom of a crowd of crowds, now that pretty much everybody has their rankings up.
Included in the composite Top 25 below are the coaches' and AP polls, BCS guru Samuel Chi's projected BCS standings (which contain the funniest fact out of everything included here -- there's a BCS computer that doesn't rank the Florida St. Seminoles at all), the final preseason edition of SB Nation's BlogPoll (which logs polls from our dozens of college football communities), Football Outsiders' projected F/+ rankings, the SI.com Top 25*, and our own SB Nation Studios Top 25 Countdown (which was concocted via a secret formula less esoteric than the BCS'). Both the coaches' and simulated BCS entries contain elements that will eventually work their way into shaping who plays for the national title, so PAY ATTENTION here, folks.
You can see a few clear tiers at the top, with Florida State and the Georgia Bulldogs following the upper crust and lower-upper crust. The South Carolina Gamecocks, Michigan Wolverines and Arkansas Razorbacks form the next bunch, followed by the Wisconsin Badgers, West Virginia Mountaineers, Texas Longhorns and Michigan St. Spartans.
Also interesting, again, is the teams on which we're either sold or over which we're AT EACH OTHER'S THROATS. Oklahoma barely budges all the way across, while the Oklahoma St. Cowboys are completely all over the place. And those teams are in the same state!
* Some consensus top 25 teams weren't included in SI's poll, which only went to 25. I added a No. 26 ranking in that column for teams that would've otherwise finished with averages better than 25. This dinged their overall scores somewhat, in order to reflect their omission from SI.
While we’re here, let’s watch some of the many fine college football videos from SB Nation’s YouTube channel:
