Alabama Will Be Favored to Win Their Third Straight National Championship in 2013
Just because the previous college football season ended only last week doesn’t mean we can’t turn our eyes to next year already. Based exclusively on returning players, currently committed recruits and your standard blind guessing, our very early 2013 top 25 is included below. Disagree? Like these picks? Feel free to share your thoughts below.
Atlantic Coast Convos 2013 Top 25 (January 14)
2. Oregon Ducks
10. LSU Tigers
13. Florida Gators
15. Texas Longhorns
17. TCU Horned Frogs
18. Oklahoma Sooners
20. UCLA Bruins
22. USC Trojans
Per conference: SEC (6), Pac-12 (5), Big Ten (4), Big 12 (4), ACC (2), Big East (2), Independent (1), MWC (1)
Comment, share this post, follow/like the blog and follow @JohnCassillo on Twitter
Atlantic Coast Convos 
John, how can you not have Va Tech in the top 10? (I kid). Seriously, this looks about right; I think there are other ACC teams with a shot at finishing top 25 (e.g. Miami, Ga Tech), but they don’t deserve it pre-season.
Thanks, Mark. Yeah, I had VaTech, Miami and Georgia Tech in mind toward the bottom of the poll, but I think I’ve learned my lesson after last season. The ACC started off the year with three or four teams in the polls, so when those teams (Virginia Tech, State) fell out, it looked worse than it actually was. For next month’s top 25, I’ll be soliciting input from all the contributors as well — will be interesting since we’re basing it all on speculation instead of actual games. Probably going to result in a very wide spectrum of teams getting votes.
Interesting ranking for Boise State … don’t know if they’ll be that high or not (don’t know who they have coming and going). They’ll be in the Mountain West and perhaps have a chance to play a conference championship game, so we’ll see how things go.
It would be nice if at least someone else from the ACC made it three teams in the Top 25. Don’t know who might step up. I’ll sound like a complete homer here but I think Maryland might have a chance (with two 5-star receivers on board, they have at least a shot, if they keep at least one QB healthy). Maybe UNC will make it up there. Who knows.
If Boise can beat BYU and Washington with a more experienced team next year (and they beat both with a younger team this year), I see little reason they can’t go 13-0 or 12-1.
The ACC will probably start the year with GTech, VaTech, Miami and UNC on the outskirts of top 25 ballots, but there’s ample opportunity for all to move up into the polls.