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Every preseason ranking is biased and dumb and pointless and a waste of everybody’s time, but we all love to follow them anyway. Why do fans of the Washington State Cougars follow rankings? Because we thrive on being disrespected. We absorb the hate and use it as fuel to vote in online polls against fans of other universities.
Well, today we have some more disrespect to throw on the fire. The SB Nation FanPulse preseason Top 25 is out, and you might notice one school missing.
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That’s right, WSU is not part of the initial Top 25. Let the hate flow through you.
WSU actually finished just outside the Top 25 as the first in the “others receiving votes” category. Because more than 50 of you fine readers signed up to vote in the poll, that WSU fans placed their school at No. 16, or 10 slots higher than the average. Here’s what CougCenter readers believe to be the Top 25 college football teams in the land:
WSU FanPulse Top 25 - Preseason
| Ranking | Team |
|---|---|
| Ranking | Team |
| 1 | Clemson |
| 2 | Alabama |
| 3 | Georgia |
| 4 | Oklahoma |
| 5 | Ohio State |
| 6 | Michigan |
| 7 | Notre Dame |
| 8 | Texas |
| 9 | Florida |
| 10 | Texas A&M |
| 11 | LSU |
| 12 | Washington |
| 13 | Penn State |
| 14 | Oregon |
| 15 | Utah |
| 16 | Washington State |
| 17 | UCF |
| 18 | Wisconsin |
| 19 | Iowa |
| 20 | Auburn |
| 21 | Northwestern |
| 22 | Iowa State |
| 23 | Miami |
| 24 | Michigan State |
| 25 | Nebraska |
So, even while WSU’s fans boosted their school up to No. 16, the Cougs still failed to crack the Top 25. To expose the haters, I’ve grouped the other schools into three categories: Non-Haters (Put WSU in Top 25), Haters Among Them (WSU received votes), and Complete Haters (Not even one dang vote for WSU).
There is exactly one other school’s fans that put WSU in the Top 25, and that is Utah (which put WSU at No. 25). The Non-Haters list is short this week. I won’t even throw shade at the Utes for recent results on the football field—much respect for the respect.
Again, the other schools that show up on this list are those that had at least 50 voters. There’s no Oregon (hasn’t beaten WSU since 2014) or Stanford (hasn’t beaten WSU since 2015). In fact, WSU, Utah, and Washington were the other Pac-12 schools to pass that 50-voter threshold. The Pac-12 just can’t help itself.
Non-Haters
Utah
Haters Among Them
Alabama
Auburn
Baylor
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Iowa State
Kansas State
LSU
Maryland
Miami
Michigan State
Minnesota
Northwestern
Pitt
Rutgers
Syracuse
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Washington
Complete Haters
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Group of 5
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisville
Michigan
Missouri
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Ole Miss
Penn State
Purdue
Texas
TCU
Virginia
Wake Forest
Wisconsin
If you want to get involved in the voting and help WSU break the Top 25, you can sign up here. Do it!