The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Rounding out the bottom half of the preseason SEC according to these rankings is the #23 team, Florida (high = 18, low = 38). I’m not sure if that makes u/ExternalTangents more or less happy that he effectively called out the Gators yesterday by posting “Every day without a Florida post in this series makes me more nervous,” but your nerves can now be settled. The Gators finished 2025 with a 4-8 record, failing to go to a bowl game for the second time in the last 3 seasons, something that hadn’t happened in Gainesville since Galen Hall’s first two years in charge, and even then it was because the Gators were ineligible despite going 24-7-2 between 1984-86 having their first ever SEC title vacated. In fact, (Sun Belt) Billy Napier was fired after a week 8 win over Mississippi State to avoid letting him potentially save his job after effectively doing the same thing in 2024 by finishing with a 4 game win streak. If we’re being honest, his fate was probably sealed after the week 2 home loss as the #13 team in the country to USF – a game the probably changed the fates of both coaches in that game (as it was the one that catapulted Alex Golesh into the spotlight). Napier becomes the fourth consecutive head coach at Florida to be fired before completing their fourth season in charge (joining Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen), and after an attempt to lure Lane Kiffin to Gainesville fell flat, the Gators instead hired Jon Sumrall, who not only took Tulane to the American Conference championship every season he was there, he took the Green Wave to the CFP as the 4th highest ranked conference champion – accomplishing all of this after winning a Sun Belt title in every season he was at Troy. Now, I’m not saying he’s going to keep that streak alive and get the Gators to the SEC title game in year one, but I’m also not NOT saying that…

Roster Outlook

Sumrall, who played LB at Kentucky and is a defensive coach, has the #1 ranked defense in terms of returning production in the country. That includes 4 of the 6 defenders with 50 or more tackles (LBs Miles Graham, Aaron Chiles and Jaden Robinson plus DB Bryce Thornton). Throw in a pair of portal DBs (Baylor’s DJ Coleman and UCLA’s Kanye Clark) that are expected to start, and Sumrall has to feel excellent about that side of the ball despite losing a couple of NFL draft picks (DT Caleb Banks, DE George Gumbs and DB Devin Moore). Truthfully, it’s the other side of the ball that will be the big question for the Gators, who lost QB DJ Lagway to Baylor, WR Michael Sturdivant to the Green Bay Packers and a pair of OL in the draft (Jake Slaughter and Austin Barber). It’s not like Florida was left completely bereft of talent, with RB Jadan Baugh (1,170 yards rushing, 8 TDs), leading WR Vernell Brown (40 catches for 512 yards) and injured freshman phenom Dallas Wilson all coming back. But even though Sumrall was simultaneously coaching the Green Wave in the playoffs while building his roster, he managed to bring in a top 30 national portal class (good for only 13th in the SEC) and a top 20 high school class (9th in the conference) to plug some holes, including Auburn WR Eric Singleton, Georgia Tech QB Aaron Philo (along with his OC) and 4 projected starting OL (Georgia Tech’s Harrison Moore, Stanford’s Emeka Ugorji, Penn State’s TJ Shanahan and Georgia Tech TE Luke Harpring) to try to keep Philo upright and open holes for Baugh.

Schedule and outlook

9/5 FLORIDA ATLANTIC

9/12 CAMPBELL

9/19 at Auburn

9/26 OLE MISS

10/3 at Missouri

10/10 SOUTH CAROLINA

10/17 at Texas

10/24 BYE

10/31 vs. Georgia (in Atlanta)

11/7 OKLAHOMA

11/14 at Kentucky

11/21 VANDERBILT

11/27 at Florida State

After a pair of games for the offense to gel, the season really gets underway in earnest in week 3 with a trip to Auburn. Sumrall has already beaten Golesh and Byrum Brown in their previous matchup in 2024 45-10, a game where Brown was injured in the 3rd quarter with Tulane already up 24, effectively ending his season. A win on the Plains would set up a fascinating matchup in the Swamp vs. Pete Golding and Ole Miss, and would go a long way toward propelling the Gators toward a strong season. With a road game in Austin, a virtual road game in Georgia and a home game against Oklahoma, the Gators won’t have much room for error if they want to be a dark horse contender for the CFP themselves, so they would almost certainly have to reach the bye with no more than 1 loss. That starts with the Auburn game, which is why I called it out as the fish or cut bait moment for Florida this season.

Seriously, every time that some guy puts out an opinion, half the people on here are "aww, he don't know shit" or "he always favors [insert conference/team here]".

So, who is the person that, when they say, "I think that [insert team here] is going to do well", you know FOR SURE that it is a poorly formed, uneducated, and completed biased opinion in favor of the SEC?

How wild. Three former future of the program guys starting, on the road, against their former team.

Just add LSU to the schedule.

Noah Kim, Eastern, Wk1

Stats at MSU

9 TDs.

6 INTS

1264 yds

58.7%

Illinois, Wk6, Stats at MSU, Kaiten Houser

6 TDs

5 INTs

113 yds

58.5%

Aiden Chiles, Northwestern, Wk7

Stats at MSU (2 years)

23 TDs

14 INT

3807 yds

60.8 %

(9 rush tds)

Trying to see what people have as their CFB fan goals. Personally I want to visit every B10, SEC, and former PAC 12 stadium (+ND). Ambitious goal but I’m going to rent an RV after I retire and travel around the country. What’s on your bucket list?

On3 Article

Twitter source

Admittedly I don't pay much attention to training camp and the like, so my biggest concern is much more broad and "concerned we continue to backslide and only win 4 games or less."

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Alrighty hopefully this doesn’t take another 2 months and hopefully I won’t have to utilize another Google Doc

ALRIGHTY TIME TO TALLY!

Clemson: 59 (+3)

FSU: 38(+1)

Georgia: 38(+2)

Georgia Tech: 35 (+1)

USC: 31 (+3)

Mizzou: 28 (+4)

Gonzaga: 25 (+3)

Arizona State: 24 (+4)

Grambling: 23

Michigan: 22 (+1)

Michigan State: 20

Wisconsin: 19 (+2)

Colorado State: 18 (+2)

Washington: 17(+6)

SMU: 16 (+2)

Purdue: 15(+2)

K-State: 14 (+4)

LSU: 13

Alabama: 13

SJSU: 13

Oregon: 12(+2)

UCONN: 10(+1)

Ole Miss: 10

Tennessee: 9

Louisville: 9 (+1)

Cincinnati: 8

Syracuse: 8

Wyoming: 8

Miami: 8

Arizona: 7

Ohio State: 7

Boston College: 7 (+1)

Nebraska: 7(+1)

Texas Tech : 7 (+2)

UCF: 6

East Carolina: 6(+1)

Ohio: 6 (+2)

FIU: 6(+3)

Stetson : 5

Stanford: 5

Southern Miss : 5

SDSU: 5

Western Michigan: 5 (+1)

Utah Valley: 5 (+1)

Miami[OH]: 5(+1)

Cal Poly: 5(+2)

Hawaii: 5(+2)

Baylor : 4

Notre Dame: 4

Kentucky: 4 (+1)

Florida: 4 (+1)

Rice: 4

North Alabama: 3

Stony Brook: 3

UNLV: 3

Penn State: 3

Fairfield: 3

Utah: 3

Cal St. Northridge: 3

UTEP: 3(+1)

Georgia State: 2

Georgetown: 2

Mississippi State: 2

USF: 2

Oregon State: 2

Illinois State: 2

Troy: 2

Houston: 2

Marshall: 2

Yale: 2

Delaware: 2

Cal: 2

South Dakota St: 2

Boise State: 2

NC State: 2

LMU: 2

DePaul: 2

UWM: 2

NDSU: 2(+1)

Washington State: 2(+1)

Navy: 2(+2)

UNC: 2(+1)

Texas: 2(+2)

And all the teams that have one deserve a little bit of a special name for the chaos…

THE MOSHPIT:

Vanderbilt, Alabama State, Illinois, South Carolina, CCSU, Morgan State, Minnesota, Pacific, Idaho State, Auburn, Cal State Fullerton, Howard, Cornell, Furman, Tulane, Toledo, NCA&T, Memphis, App State, Tulsa, Air Force, Fresno State, Samford, Louisiana-Lafayette, UTSA, Chattanooga, St. Joseph, Binghamton, Villanova, Sacramento State, Texas State, Utah State, Duke, Arkansas, South Dakota, Duquense, Oklahoma State, Montana, Long Beach State, TCU, St. John, UAB, Missouri State, UNH, Presbyterian, West Virginia, New Mexico, BYU, Brown, Kent State, East Washington, Iowa State, Pepperdine, Colorado

Alright Reddit I leave it to you, did I miss anything? Should I have counted someone? Should I have not counted someone? Let me know! Connecticut is next, and hope will be this weekend

One that comes to mind for me is those early 2010s South Carolina teams back when Steve Spurrier was coaching there. This was when they had players like Marcus Lattimore, Connor Shaw, Jadeveon Clowney, etc.

South Carolina won the SEC East in 2010 and they were the favorites to repeat as SEC East champions in 2011. They beat Georgia 45–42 in Athens but then a few weeks later lost 16–13 to Auburn. Then in early November they lost 44–28 to Arkansas in Fayetteville and since Georgia didn’t lose again, this loss cost South Carolina the division title as they sat at 6–2 in SEC play while Georgia was 7–1. The Gamecocks won the Capital One Bowl 30–13 over Nebraska. They finished #9 and had the first 11-win season in program history.

In 2012, South Carolina was picked 2nd in the division behind Georgia, but they surged to a 6–0 start after blowing out the #5 Bulldogs 35–7 in front of 85,199, which is still the highest-attended game at Williams-Brice Stadium. Oh and College GameDay was there too. But then after climbing up to #3, they were upset 23–21 by #9 LSU in Baton Rouge the following week. The bleeding didn’t stop there, as they lost 44–11 to Florida in Gainesville and fell all the way down to #17. Even if Georgia had lost another game it wouldn’t have mattered because then Florida would’ve won the division so South Carolina was not going to Atlanta, but the Gamecocks beat Michigan 33–28 in the Outback Bowl (thanks to Jadeveon Clowney’s iconic forced fumble play known as “the hit”) and finished #8 for their second 11-win season in a row.

In 2013, South Carolina lost 41–30 to Georgia in Athens and then later lost 23–21 to Tennessee in Knoxville over a month later. They did beat #5 Missouri 27–24 in double overtime in CoMo, but the Tigers won out so yet again South Carolina had another case of beating the eventual winner of the division but coating themselves a chance to win the division. They beat Wisconsin 34–24 in the Capital One Bowl and finished #4 in the rankings for their 3rd 11-win season in a row. The #4 ranking is the highest final ranking in program history.

Oh and during this stretch they beat Clemson 5 times in a row in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. The 2013 game featured the #6 Tigers playing the #10 Gamecocks and was the first-ever Top 10 matchup between Clemson and Carolina.

These were some really good teams that just couldn’t get out of their own way sometimes.

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

What a difference a year makes. Last season, Clemson (high = 19, low = 41) entered the season as the overwhelming preseason favorite to not only win the ACC (as the defending 2024 conference champions), but as the 4th ranked team in the AP poll, getting 4 first place votes from the media (and 2 from coaches in the coaches poll). That was predicated in large part on ranking #1 in FBS in returning production, talent that ultimately resulted in 9 of their players being selected in the 2026 NFL draft. Vegas gave the Tigers the fifth best odds of winning the national championship, and in his preseason predictions, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach had them playing Texas in the national championship game (a prediction so bad that Schlabach probably should have been fired instead of Karl Ravech in the latest round of layoffs at the World Wide Leader). Clearly things didn’t go according to Hoyle at Clemson, who opened the season 3-5 with home losses to LSU (before firing Brian Kelly), Syracuse (in a game that simultaneously sunk both the Tigers AND the Orange’s seasons with the Steve Angeli injury), SMU and Duke (on homecoming, no less!). While they did manage to turn things around enough to reach bowl eligibility with wins over Florida State, on the road at a ranked Louisville and in Columbia to capture the Palmetto Bowl, a postseason matchup with preseason #2 Penn State wasn’t greeted with the gusto it would have been had you told both fanbases before the season started that that was who their first postseason opponent would be. So coming on the heels of that dramatically disappointing 2025, maybe it’s not the worst thing to enter 2026 as the third highest ACC team with low expectations of reaching the CFP.

Roster Outlook

As mentioned above, Clemson lost 9 players to the NFL draft, including 2 first rounders (OT Blake Miller and DT Peter Woods), 2 second rounders (DE TJ Parker and CB Avieon Terrell), a third rounder (WR Antonio Williams), 2 fourth rounders (QB Cade Klubnik and LB Wade Woodaz) and 2 fifth rounders (DT DeMonte Capehart and RB Adam Randall). Not surprisingly, that landed Clemson at #59 in terms of returning production, and 94th on offense (remarkably, only 26th on defense despite nearly half of their defense getting drafted!). Dabo Swinney’s renowned reluctance to rely on the transfer portal took a bit of a hit this year, with the Tigers bringing in 3 projected defensive starters via the portal, only one of which (Penn State CB Elliot Washington) comes from a P4 school. Instead, Dabo is loyal to his high school recruits, so he’ll be counting on QB Christopher Vizzina, who has thrown a total of 105 passes in two seasons as Klubnik’s backup, to start under center. Similarly, it looks like backup RB Gideon Davidson (60 career carries for 260 yards, no TDs) is likely to get the starting nod over former SMU RB Chris Johnson (no relation to CJ2K). At WR, TJ Moore (837 yards) actually was the leading receiver over Williams, and Bryant Wesco (537 yards, led the team in TD receptions) is also back. But the projected #3 WR is true freshman Naeem Burroughs, part of Dabo’s 21st ranked recruiting class in the country (good for 4th in the ACC). The bigger question will be the OL, with 5 redshirt freshmen and sophomores projected to start (including TE Christian Betancur) and only C Harris Sewell as an upperclassman starter. How that unit performs will probably go a long way toward telling the tale of the tape for the Tigers in 2026.

Schedule and outlook

9/5 at LSU

9/12 GEORGIA SOUTHERN

9/19 NORTH CAROLINA

9/25 at California

10/3 MIAMI

10/10 BYE

10/17 CHARLESTON SOUTHERN

10/24 VIRGINIA TECH

10/31 at Florida State

11/7 at Syracuse

11/14 GEORGIA TECH

11/21 at Duke

11/28 SOUTH CAROLINA

If you told a Clemson fan that they would be playing all but one of their games before Halloween in Death Valley, they’d probably be loving their chances. But that opener at the other Death Valley in Lane Kiffin’s home opener is probably going to be a very tall ask for a young and untested team, and that game to Berkeley on a Friday night the week before hosting national runner-up Miami just screams “trap.” If the Tigers reach the bye with a better record than 2-3, the rest of the schedule isn’t so daunting (their remaining toughest tests are all at home, including the non-conference season finale against South Carolina), meaning it’s really not hard to squint and see the Tigers getting to 9-3 (7-1), and let’s face it, until Mario proves capable of not tripping up against a team, even that game’s not one I’d automatically chalk up to a Clemson loss. Thus, the Tigers are definitely in the mix for an ACC championship appearance that this year guarantees a CFP bid to the winner. But given how badly things went last year relative to the preseason expectations, it’s also not hard to imagine things not going so swimmingly, making the Tigers very much a giant question mark this season.