The worst kept secret in college football is that Alabama is the overwhelming choice to repeat as national champions in 2021. Out of 20 preseason predictions and polls, The Crimson Tide is the clear choice at No. 1 in 18 of 20 preseason predictions and polls, with only Phil Steele and Dave Congrove placing Alabama lower than that. Steele’s choice is the Oklahoma Sooners, while Congrove makes the unusual choice of the USC Trojans. (We’ll talk more about Congrove in a bit.)

The teams following Alabama are also fairly clear. The consensus at No. 2 is Clemson, with 12 of the predictions selecting the Tigers there. Narrowly behind Clemson is Oklahoma at No. 3, with 12 services picking the Sooners there and four others placing them at No. 2.

The rest of the Top 10, as seen by the consensus of these predictions, is (in order) Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M, Iowa State, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Cincinnati.

The remainder of the Top 25 is led by Oregon, followed by Wisconsin, Florida, LSU, USC, Miami (Fla.), Iowa, Texas, Indiana, Penn State, Washington, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Utah and Auburn. Upstart Coastal Carolina missed out on the preseason Top 25 by just five points.

The bigger story might be the predictions themselves, and which ones appear to be more consistent and trustworthy — as well as which ones appear to be either more biased or flawed in their methods. Much of that won’t be known until later in the season, and perhaps when the season is finished. But if these predictions hold to be mostly true (and they usually are more accurate than not), then there are some early indications about which ones are on-target, and which ones are “out on a limb.”

• The USA Today/ AFCA coaches poll is extremely close to the consensus. The average pick is less than half of a point off of the median, and just 0.7 points off for teams in the preseason Top 25.
• Other services who are are near to the consensus (less than a point per team) are the Associated Press sportswriters’ poll, Bleacher Report, ESPN’s poll of their “experts,” the FWAA/NFF Super 16 and Athlon Sports. Lindy’s national preview was slightly more than a point per team off.
• Four of those also were less than 1.2 points off for teams in the Top 25: the AP, Bleacher Report, ESPN and FWAA/NFF.
• Eight polls were more than two points off of the consensus, but only one of those was wildly off, with the average pick being more than five points from the norm. The Congrove poll was 5.191 points from the consensus overall, but that number soared to 8.26 points when considering only the Top 25.

The Congrove poll is the biggest curiosity in this mix, perhaps because it gave so much credence to the limited schedules played by teams from the Pac-12. Either Congrove will come away from this season as a genius or a crackpot after anomalies such as these:

• Six of the consensus Top 25 are unranked in Congrove, notably Ohio State, Georgia, Cincinnati and Florida.
• That means that six teams outside of the consensus Top 25 are in Congrove’s list, notably notably, Minnesota, N.C. State, Colorado, Stanford and Ohio. All four of those teams got their only points from Congrove.
• Four of Congrove’s Top 25 aren’t even in the consensus Top 10: No. 15 USC is picked No. 1, No. 20 Indiana is No. 2, No. 12 Wisconsin is No. 3 and No. 16 Miami (Fla.) is No. 5.
• The consensus places six SEC teams in the Top 25, but Congrove lists only three, and it bumps Alabama all the way down to No. 8.
• Congrove’s formula has a lot of love for the Pac-12, as it places seven of the conference’s teams in the Top 25 (compared with five in the consensus).

The complete breakdown of the comparison can be downloaded as a PDF. Note that where the number 26 is listed, that indicates that a team was unranked in that poll. (We limited each poll to the Top 25 since many did not rank beyond that.) Below are the comparisons of the polls compared to the median for both the overall rankings and the Top 25.

Overall comparison:

Top 25 comparison:

Copyright © 2021 Doug DeBolt.