Wisconsin football: Badgers ranked No. 17 in initial USA Today/Coaches Top-25 Poll

The Wisconsin Badgers open the season ranked No. 17 in the initial Amway’s Coaches Poll powered by USA TODAY Sports, as it called on their website. The poll, voted on by coaches or the SIDs that have been tasked with filling it out, has no bearing on anything in the college football world except to fill commenter’s diapers up when their team is being DISRESPECTED!

The top-5 of this poll is a who’s who of awesome teams over the College Football Playoff era. Clemson received 59 of 65 first place votes and sits at No. 1, followed by Alabama (who received the other six first place votes), Georgia, Oklahoma and Ohio State.

The Big Ten is well represented in the preseason rankings, with seven teams ranked in the top-25 and eight teams ranked in the brand new top-26.

The previously mentioned Buckeyes sit at fifth, closely followed by their friends up north, Michigan, at No. 7, Penn State at No. 14, the Badgers at No. 17, Iowa and birthday boy Kirk Ferentz at No. 19, MSU at No. 20 and Northwestern at No. 25.

Nebraska is amongst the first teams in the “others receiving votes” category and Minnesota is amongst the last...receiving one vote, aka three fewer votes than Appalachian State. Outside of Penn State, the Badgers face all of those teams this year which makes their schedule pretty loaded.

For our one bold prediction based on this poll allow me to talk about teams that are BACK. Florida, Notre Dame and Texas occupy spots 8-10 in this poll. I bet one of them doesn’t finish the season ranked and none of them are in the top-10 by the end of the year.