ESPN's Pat Forde is important enough to receive an advance copy of the Bible of college football by Phil Steele and as any smart person would do they leak the rest of his countdown, and the top ten is pretty shocking. Phil is releasing his top 30 countdown each day but thanks to Twitter here is the rest of his countdown.
22. West Virginia
21. South Carolina
20. Florida State
19. Georgia
18. Penn State
17. Arkansas
16. Notre Dame
15. Auburn
14. Iowa
13. Virginia Tech
12. North Carolina
11. Texas
Before we get to the top ten (tease, I know), but Steele is on his own for having Notre Dame in his top 25 which could repeat in last years mistake of having the Irish over ranked. Other rankings that are differing from the norm are Virginia Tech being lower and North Carolina much higher.
Now onto the top 10.
10. Oregon
9. Miami
8. USC
7. Florida
6. Boise State
5. Nebraska
4. TCU
3. Alabama
2. Ohio State
1. Oklahoma
The obvious ranking abnormality is that Oklahoma is number one, and an overlooked ranking is that TCU is fourth and ahead of Boise who is at sixth. Miami, Nebraska and USC are quite high as well, but Phil Steele is rarely way off base. He has his usually two to three teams who are off base which is pretty good.
Back to Oklahoma, not really sure how they can be the favorite to be number one. They return only four defensive starters, lost three players to the NFL in the first four picks and (yes, Sam Bradford did not play much), four in the first round, and overall they lost seven players overall to the draft. They were 8-5 and did finish strong by shutting out their rival Oklahoma State and beating a good Stanford team.
The Sonners may challenge for the Big XII title, but they also could be in the Insight.com bowl with three or four loses.