College football rankings: Phil Steele reveals preseason Top 10

Phil Steele has released his preseason top 10 for the upcoming college football season.

Few people are better at forecasting what lies ahead in a college football season than college football analyst Phil Steele.

Steele has released his preseason top 10 for the upcoming 2021 campaign. He has been doing this for the last 12 years, hitting on 115 of the 120 teams. Steele has not missed a team in the last three years. What is even more impressive is he is able to project these college football rankings six months in advance before they come out. Here is his top 10 for 2021.

Phil Steele’s college football preseason top 10 rankings for 2021

1. Alabama Crimson Tide
2. Clemson Tigers
3. Georgia Bulldogs
4. Oklahoma Sooners
5. Ohio State Buckeyes
6. Texas A&M Aggies
7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
8. North Carolina Tar Heels
9. Iowa State Cyclones
10. Cincinnati Bearcats

As expected, you have the usual suspects in the top five. The Alabama Crimson Tide has the top spot followed by the Clemson Tigers, the Georgia Bulldogs, the Oklahoma Sooners and the Ohio State Buckeyes in that order. There is a very strong possibility that three of these five teams will end up making the 2022 College Football Playoff field. These feel like the right five teams for now.

Rounding out the top 10 in order are the Texas A&M Aggies, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Iowa State Cyclones and the Cincinnati Bearcats. Steele was very high on the Aggies entering 2020, so I will trust his judgment on them, even with Kellen Mond turning pro. However, I do have concerns about Notre Dame not returning a starting quarterback.

Ian Book was a revelation for the Irish for the last three seasons. He has opted to turn pro as Mond did out of Texas A&M. As for North Carolina, Iowa State and Cincinnati, all three programs have excellent returning signal-callers in Sam Howell, Brock Purdy and Desmond Ridder, respectively. Once again, it is really hard to argue against any of these teams being in the top 10.

Will Steele be able to make it four years in a row with a perfect preseason top-10 rankings?

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