Colin Cowherd's bad CFB Playoff prediction is proof preseason rankings are flawed

Justin Favors

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Colin Cowherd's bad CFB Playoff prediction is proof preseason rankings are flawed image

The top AP preseason college football teams are no longer ranked. Texas came into the season No. 1 with Penn State at No. 2, but both lost to unranked teams in dominating fashions.  

The final scores of these upsets do not tell the story of how poorly these two previously ranked teams played. Penn State was held to seven points in the first half against a winless UCLA team. While Texas was unable to keep a clean pocket and turned the ball over to Florida, which diminished any chances of staying in the game.  

FOX Sports' Colin Cowherd was taken hook, line and sinker off the preseason ranking. He thought Texas and Penn State would be in the national championship and bragged about his pick very openly. However, a little bit of research would have pointed out a few things. One of them being Texas would need an extraordinary effort to overcome Ohio State at the Horseshoe right out of the gate.  

Not to mention, the hype surrounding a player can be a good or bad thing. In two cases, it is detrimental to a player’s career and draft stock. Sometimes players get too much credit for not doing enough or off potential.

Penn State QB Drew Allar can put up numbers without question. However, in big games, he doesn’t make the necessary plays to win. He averages 200+ passing yards/game but when a ranked opponent comes into town, especially from the Big Ten, he’s below average. His average between last year’s Big Ten championship loss to Oregon, CFP loss, and loss to Ohio State in the regular season last year; his average is 161 passing yards per game. Turnovers aren’t the issue; rather, it’s his clutch gene, something most, if not every, quarterback should have.

Texas' Arch Manning has yet to live up to the hype he had in the preseason. Costly turnovers shift momentum and make it hard to win games. He has shown spurts of being a good runner, but not enough to get the Longhorns over the hump. Steve Sarkisian is a good coach, but should he search for a new quarterback in the portal in the offseason? 

The current top-ranked team is Ohio State, who is the defending national champion. Unless there is some terrible recruiting that happens in the offseason or a head coaching change, national champions should be ranked first in preseason polls, not a team picked on speculation. Unlike Texas and Penn State, the Buckeyes have dominated every opponent on the schedule and are showing signs of potentially repeating.  

This is a tip of the cap to Ryan Day and his staff. He has put his teams right there at the end, year in and year out. There have been issues with CFP games not being competitive due to the wrong teams getting bids. Sometimes it is hard to determine if a team will show up when the lights are the brightest, and sometimes it is just obvious when it has never truly played under bright lights. That's not the case with Ohio State. 

With botched rankings and uncompetitive playoff games, the committee needs to reconsider its ranking system. It will be for the sake of the fans and for the sake of college football itself.

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Justin Favors

Justin Favors is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He has covered college and professional sports over the past decade. He previously wrote content for Athlon Sports.