Paul Finebaum saw USA Today’s 2025 Preseason Coaches Top 25 Poll released Monday morning, a week before the Associated Press releases its own preseason poll. And like college football fans everywhere, the ESPN talking head’s immediate takeaway was to call out the “voters” involved in effectively manufacturing a rare 1 vs. 2 season-opener between top-ranked Texas and Ohio State.
USA Today’s Preseason Coaches Poll gave the Longhorns the top overall spot ahead of Arch Manning’s much-anticipated debut as Texas’ new starting quarterback, with the reigning national champion Buckeyes sliding into the No. 2 spot despite losing much of the talent that helped it secure its first national title in a decade last season. Meanwhile, defending national semifinalist Penn State — which has what is arguably college football’s most talented roster — lands at No. 3 ahead of defending SEC champion Georgia, which beat the Longhorns twice last season before losing to Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl CFP national quarterfinal in 2024.
For his part, Finebaum called into question how much the voting college coaches that participate in the USA Today poll actually even know about other teams at this point. In fact, Finebaum accused the Coaches Poll “voters” with helping create what could be college football’s first season-opener between the nation’s top two teams.
“I think the biggest reason is Aug. 30 at The ‘Shoe. And these are coaches here, but let me be honest, they know even less than the broadcasters because they have less time,” Finebaum said Tuesday during his weekly appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “If you’re coaching at FMU or Alabama or Southern Cal, you could really care less about what’s going on elsewhere other than your next opponent. You might pay attention to some of the teams on your schedule. So Ohio State is in there based on what happened last year, obviously, based on what’s about to happen.
“Pollsters – coaches or broadcasters – tend to gravitate towards matchups. And this game, the second we started thinking about it as we walked out of the Cotton Bowl last year, was going to be a 1 vs. 2 game.”
As Finebaum points out, the potential 1 vs. 2 season-opener is a rematch of last season’s Cotton Bowl national semifinal in which the eventual national champion Buckeyes doubled up the Longhorns, 28-14, courtesy of a 14-0 fourth quarter Jan. 10 inside AT&T Stadium. In fact, ESPN’s “Mouth of the South” called out his own network, as well as preseason magazines released earlier this summer, for contributing to the offseason biases that helped orchastrate the likely 1 vs. 2 matchup.
“You’re right, Penn State very easily could be No. 1, Notre Dame could be 1 or 2, you could argue Clemson could be (up there as well), but the biases remain,” Finebaum continued. “And I don’t even know where it starts, but I blame everyone including ESPN and the (preseason) magazines that start setting a template. And you get a coach that walks in and the sports (information) guy says, ‘Let’s fill out the ballot,’ and he goes: ‘Ok, what’s everybody else saying?’ And that’s how it happens.”
