Should Ohio State be viewed as the No. 1 college football team for 2026?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to the Bill & Doug Show. Doug Lamouris and Bill Landis. Should Ohio State be the number one team in the country going into 2026? That is the question we are hitting today, Bill. Yes or no? Maybe. Oh, tantalizing. I think maybe is the right answer. We were just talking about this.
Should Ohio State be considered the No. 1 college football team for 2026?
I think there's a lot to look at with the way the sport is perceived, comparing new coaches, quarterback situations, who's hitting the transfer portal, who's relying on recruits, that we can look at the entire sport. Because on the Bill & Doug Show, we want to continue to analyze the entire sport. From a Big Ten perspective, from a Northern perspective, from a national perspective, this... This is about Ohio State. I looked at seven. God, find something in your life the way that college football media loves way too early top 25 rankings. My goodness. I saw all three put out like it's top 100 players for 2026. Can we take a breath? This season just ended. And it's not so – like there's two different things I think at play here.
One is, is anything like this educated, right? And it's like that's not the point, I don't think. So actually like a top 100 player list I think is like, oh, Jeremiah Smith's won. Great. Congratulations. You can put a Jeremiah Smith photo at the top of your story.
Yeah.
What common factors do the top college football teams share?
But consensus matters. Perception matters. How people are viewing the sport matters. And so I looked at seven. I looked at CBS Sports on three, The Athletic, USA Today, Yahoo, PFF, and ESPN. Of those seven, have you perused these? Have you taken these in? No, the only one I saw was the on three one. Okay. Okay. Out of those seven, and there are others, but I ran out. I couldn't do anymore. Do you want to do the Bill and Doug one real quick? I was going to ask you if we should do our own top 25. I think we prefer ours to be more educated, though. We'll give you our top 25 in June. The appropriately early top 25. Not the way too early. How many of these seven have Ohio State number one? Uh, four. Two. Okay. Who are the other teams that are ranked number one in at least one of these seven polls?
I will tell you there are three more teams who are ranked number one by somebody. Oregon? Oregon is first in three of them. Okay. Texas. One of them. Um... Hmm. Georgia, Indiana. So I, I don't know. I don't know if that was like, like you got to beat the champ to be the champ kind of thing, which is like, which is, which is fine, I guess. I mean, if it was anybody else, I guess you could do it. It was ESPN actually, Mark Schlabaugh, who just like pops out of his groundhog hole every February, every January to rank the top 25. And then I don't know what he writes the rest of the year, but anyway, a great gig. No offense to that guy. I take that in a second.
Yeah.
Do you want to know something in common of all seven teams? No, excuse me. All four teams that are getting a first place nomination from one of these seven polls. What do they have in common, Bill? Actually, I don't know. They're not. No, no. I don't know. What is it? They either are Ohio State or Ohio State is playing them. I was going to say they're not on the SEC. I forgot Texas on the SEC, you know. But it's just like, it's like, oh, who's Ohio State play next year? It's like, well, they're playing like everybody that we're going to figure it out. Right. So this is one of those. And this is one of those again, I think. So ESPN had Ohio State six. That's the lowest anybody had them in running through everything.
Please direct your comments to. Ombudsman ESPN at crammingupyourcramhole.net. Ohio State, CBS Sports and On3 had them first. The Athletic and USA Today had them second.
How was Ohio State ranked compared to other teams last year?
Yahoo and PFF had them fourth. And ESPN had them sixth. And I just was skimming some stuff. It seemed to be that the fact that Ohio State plays a tough schedule, that it plays at Indiana, that it plays at Texas, that it gets Oregon at home, that it plays USC, that it plays Illinois, that it plays Michigan. like, you know, it's one of those, like, are you just ranking talent experience coaching? Or are you trying to like half play the schedule game in your head?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–0:27
2
Should Ohio State be considered the No. 1 college football team for 2026?
0:27–1:30
3
What common factors do the top college football teams share?
1:30–4:18
4
How was Ohio State ranked compared to other teams last year?
4:18–7:40
5
What are the implications of early college football rankings?
7:40–8:03
6
Which teams are ranked No. 1 in different preseason polls?
8:03–14:47
7
How does Ohio State's tough schedule affect its ranking?
14:47–20:39
8
What challenges does Ohio State face in the upcoming season?
20:39–47:29
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
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