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Predicting the 2017 Preseason AP Top 10.

Why wait until August, here it is now! 10 for 10 in 2016 and 76 of 80 the last 8 years!

The AP poll for the upcoming college football season is released in middle to late August and is much anticipated. Who will be this year’s preseason top ten teams? I say, why wait? Here it is now, and if past history means anything, the teams on my list this year have a 95% chance of being in the AP top ten in August.

Your first question is why do I do this list every year prior to the official start of Spring?  Back in 2001, I started putting my Surprise team list in the magazine. A Surprise team is a NON Top Ten team that I think can win the national title. Last year, my #1 Surprise teams was the Washington Huskies and they were not in the top ten, but made it to the college football playoffs (only non top 10 team to do so in ’16). Back in 2001 I devised a method for figuring out who would be in the top ten at the start of the year so I knew which teams I could choose from. Every winter I compiled this list and was extremely pleased that most years I had 10 of the 10 teams and when I missed it was just by one team. I won’t take credit for those early ones, but 9 years ago I started putting the projected AP Top 10 up in my blogs on philsteele.com and I will count all of those.

Here are some of the factors that I use for this prediction.

-- Most AP voters look at the number of returning starters the team has coming back, particularly at the offensive skill positions. Teams that return most of their starters on offense, but lose a lot of defensive playmakers are usually more highly regarded than teams that return a majority of defensive starters, but lose top skill position players on offense.

-- Another factor weighed heavily is the performance of the team in its bowl game, which is undoubtedly the lasting image voters carry with them during the off-season. A team coming off a huge bowl win is usually more highly regarded than a team that is coming off a bowl loss, regardless of what their schedule looks like for the upcoming season.

-- Also weighed heavily is where the teams finished the previous year. Naturally, teams that finished somewhere in the rankings (Top 25) have a much better chance of being preseason Top 10 than a team that finished unranked.

-- I have the last five recruiting classes factored into my formula, including the 2017 freshman class. This gives me solid perspective of the total talent on hand.

Using these factors, along with a few others including strength of schedule, I make my projections. Now, as you all know, a lot can happen between February and August, including injuries, suspensions, and transfers. However over the past eight years, I have been highly accurate using this method, including a perfect 10-for-10 in each of the past three seasons! It is important to make the point that this is NOT my preseason top 10 for next season, rather what I am projecting the AP Top 10 will look like to start the season.

How did the March projections fare in 2016?

As mentioned above, my predicted AP Top 10 was a perfect 10-for-10 in 2016! The EIGHT year totals are very strong. When I predict the AP Top 10 in February/March (about a HALF YEAR ahead of the actual AP poll), I have now hit on 76 of 80 teams. That means hitting all 10 teams in four of the eight years and missing by just one team in the other four years. Once again, predicting the top ten teams in the AP poll 5-6 MONTHS in advance, the record is now 76 out of 80 or 95%!

On Wednesday, March 22nd at 6:00pm ET on the “Drennan Live” show, I will release my prediction of this years AP preseason Top 10. You can find Drennan Live on TWC/Spectrum CH1308, DirectTV CH662 and Dish CH431.

Check out “Drennan Live,” but if you don’t have access to the show or miss it, my Thursday blog on philsteele.com will have the complete projections for the 2017 Projected AP Top Ten!