MSU #12 in ES Top 25 Preseason Consensus Football Poll

Here is the 12th annual ES Consensus Top 25, preseason for the 2012 college football season. It's 90 degrees in East Lansing today, and as we enter the dog days of summer, the national media is falling in love with the hungry, dominating Spartan defense.  MSU right now stands at #12 in the consensus polls - with a high rank of #10 by SI.com and a low rank of #19 by, who else, yes the Spartan-hater Phil Steele.

How does this work?  The ES has been calculating a preseason consensus way back since he started in 2001.  He takes some of the more highly touted rankings in national magazines and websites and gives each football program a point based on their preseason rankings by the media outlet, 1 point for #1, 2 points for #2.... 25 points for #25..  If a team is not ranked, it receives 26 points.  The final points are then averaged by the number of publications to come up with a consensus point ranking.  

This year, the 11 media outlets considered (to date) are: ESPN, Fox Sports, About.com, Athlon, NCChamps.net, CBSSports.com, SI.com, CFN Scout, Rivals Yahoo, Lindy, and Phil Steele

Below, each ranking is listed by the media outlet; an "x" indicates no ranking of that team within the Top 25, thus receiving 26 pts.  The ES may add a few more as the regular season draws nearer... but it is not surprising that each year, the ES consensus top 25 fairly closely mirrors the preseason USA Today and ESPN media polls. Click on the image below to download the full graphic.

MSU Spartans ranked #17 in coaches preseason poll; five Big Ten teams in top 25

Michigan State is ranked in the top 25 along with four other Big Ten teams in the newest 2011 USA Today  preseason coaches' ballot (below).  Wisconsin is the highest ranked among the Big Ten, at #10; Nebraska at #11, Ohio State #16, Michigan State #17, and JoePa #23.

The ES went back and looked at his preseason composite poll published June 7, which looked at eight different magazines or other national polls, these polls are prominent across the web and have been prominent for years -- prior to the 21st century of advanced internet technology. FYI - you can always look at Stassen's review and accuracy of magazine preseason polls dating back to 1993 (Phil Steele is the most accurate the past 10 years; hope he is wrong and the Spartans do much better than his #28 ranking of MSU for 2011). 

Well, below I compared the ES composite to the coaches' poll... and the similarities are remarkable.  Matter of fact, 24 of the 25 teams in the ES composite are in the coaches' poll - the lone exception being Texas at #24 (ES composite had the Longhorns at #26).  The standard deviation comparing the rankings of each team in the Top 25 was only 2.94 -- meaning, on average, the teams in the coaches' poll were within less than 3 spots of the ES poll. The argument can be made the ES composite poll fairly well resembles what the coaches are reading and thinking. So, why wait until August for the USA Today coaches' poll??  Read the ES composite poll in June.  That said... here is the newest poll and comparing it to the ES composite poll. 

* = "also receiving votes," not in top 25.   Big Ten teams in bold.

USA	ES
8/3/2011	6/7/2011		ES pts
1	1	Oklahoma	1.50
2	2	Alabama	2.13
3	3	Oregon	3.38
4	4	LSU	4.38
5	8	Florida St.	9.75
6	6	Stanford	7.88
7	5	Boise St.	6.25
8	9	Oklahoma St.	10.25
9	7	Texas A&M	9.63
10	17	Wisconsin	16.75
11	13	Nebraska	14.13
12	15	South Carolina	14.88
13	16	Virginia Tech	15.00
14	14	Arkansas	14.13
15	11	TCU	13.63
16	10	Ohio St.	10.75
17	18	Michigan St.	17.25
18	12	Notre Dame	13.88
19	21	Auburn	21.50
20	20	Mississippi St.	21.00
21	25	Missouri	22.88
22	19	Georgia	19.13
23	22	Florida	22.50
24	26	Texas	23.63
25	23	Penn St.	22.63
26*	27	Arizona St.	24.38
27*	24	W. Virginia	22.63
28*	34	Utah	25.50
29*	30	Miami-Florida	25.00
30*		Iowa
31*	29	Northwestern	24.75
32*		Arizona
33*	37	Central Florida	25.88
34*	32	Michigan	25.25
35*		Air Force
36*		North Carolina
37*	33	Houston	25.38
38*	35	South Florida	25.88
39*		Hawaii
40*		Clemson
41*		Tennessee
42*	31	Southern Miss.	25.25
43*		BYU
44*		N. Carolina St.
45*		Northern Illinois
46*		Oregon St.
47*		Pittsburgh
48*		Washington
49*		Nevada
50*		Georgia Tech
	27	USC	24.13
	36	Tulsa	25.88

MSU #27 in preseason USA Today Poll

The inaugural USA Today Poll is released, and MSU is on the outside, looking in, at #27. Florida is #1 (shocker), Ohio St #6, Joe Pa #8, Iowa #21. The Top 9 is a yawner. What is interesting is the non-BCS teams: Boise St, TCU, Utah, BYU... all in at #16 and below. Newcomers: Ole Miss #10, Okla St #12, UNC #20, and Oregon State #25 are up and coming programs that have about 40 years of average-to-bad football (like Michigan State) preceding them.

Welcome back Nebraska, #22. Look forward to ruining your party on Sept. 19, #23 Notre Dame.

USA Today (August 7, 2009)

1. Florida (53) 0-0 1,466
2. Texas (4) 0-0 1,386
3. Oklahoma (1) 0-0 1,358
4. USC (1) 0-0 1,321
5. Alabama 0-0 1,134
6. Ohio State 0-0 1,126
7. Virginia Tech 0-0 1,020
8. Penn State 0-0 988
9. LSU 0-0 917
10. Mississippi 0-0 889
11. Oklahoma State 0-0 861
12. California 0-0 711
13. Georgia 0-0 707
14. Oregon 0-0 694
15. Georgia Tech 0-0 559
16. Boise State 0-0 542
17. TCU 0-0 461
18. Utah 0-0 404
19. Florida State 0-0 371
20. North Carolina 0-0 293
21. Iowa 0-0 257
22. Nebraska 0-0 236
23. Notre Dame 0-0 194
24. Brigham Young 0-0 178
25. Oregon State 0-0 165
Others Receiving Votes
Kansas 138, Michigan State 136, Texas Tech 114, Cincinnati 90, Pittsburgh 64, West Virginia 55, Rutgers 51, Miami (FL) 46, Missouri 44, Illinois 38, Clemson 30, South Carolina 18, UCLA 14, Auburn 12, South Florida 11, Nevada 11, Kentucky 9, North Carolina State 7, Wisconsin 6, Arkansas 6, Northwestern 5, Southern Miss 4, Wake Forest 4, Arizona 3, Boston College 3, CENTRL MICHIGAN 3, East Carolina 3, Colorado 2, Maryland 2, Navy 2, Tennessee 2, TROY 1, Minnesota 1, Michigan 1, Houston 1.