BOZICH | Louisville, Kentucky suffer from Brand Name bias in football polls | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Texas A&M was so in love with the direction of its football program last fall the Aggies agreed to pay coach Jimbo Fisher, a guy with a national championship pedigree, more than $76 million to get lost.

The Aggies flirted with hiring Mark Stoops away from Kentucky, balked after last-minute booster blow-back, and pivoted to Mike Elko. He comes from Duke with a career record of 16-9 (including a November loss to mighty Virginia last season) to College Station.

But a check of six college football preseason rankings shows the Aggies cracked five Top 25s. That includes the USA Today coaches’ poll, which placed A&M No. 20.

The Miami Hurricanes are the Atlantic Coast Conference’s edition of A&M, drunk on hype, several quarts low on results.

Miami has given Mario Cristobal the keys to Coconut Grove to make the Hurricanes a football force again — but Cristobal is 12-13 at the program Howard Schnellenberger built and Jimmy Johnson upgraded to a super power.

A check of the same six preseason polls — the coaches; Phil Steele; Pro Football Focus; Joel Klatt of Fox Sports; Athlon Sports and ESPN’s Football Power Index — shows Miami in five Top 25s.

The coaches slotted Miami one place ahead of A&M.

Meanwhile, Louisville, which went to Miami and won, 38-31, last season, landed at No. 27 in the preseason coaches poll.

Jeff Brohm’s team was not ranked in the Top 25 by Klatt, Phil Steele or PFF.

A&M has not posted a better overall season record than Kentucky since the 2020 COVID season but the Aggies sit 17 spots ahead of Mark Stoops’ UK squad in the coaches’ poll.

Brand name bias is alive and well in college football.

It crackles through the initial Coaches Poll — and I say while recognizing that Brohm, Stoops and Tyson Helton are all listed as voters by USA Today.

Louisville won 10 games last season. Brohm appears to have a more talented roster, including a better quarterback, than the Cardinals had last season. But skepticism surrounds the Cards.

Kentucky has questions at quarterback and running back but Stoops has the pieces to attack with the best defense of his career.

I’ve found Kentucky in a single preseason Top 25 — Pro Football Focus, where the Wildcats are ranked 18th, projected to win 7.1 games.

Miami has not won more than eight games in any season since 2017. The Hurricanes have burned through Randy Shannon, Al Golden, Mark Richt, Manny Diaz and two seasons of Cristobal since Larry Coker delivered their last national title in 2001.

The ACC has been wishing, hoping and praying that the U was back since Miami jumped from the Big East in 2004.

This is how many ACC title games have included the Hurricanes: One, a 38-3 loss to Clemson in 2017.

Miami’s persistent inability to be what Miami used to be is a prime reason the ACC suffers on the national stage.

Cristobal is being paid to change that. USA Today reported that Miami paid Cristobal more than $22 million in 2022, with at least $9 million of that money going to pay his buyout for fleeing Oregon.

Miami is a private university so his salary numbers have been difficult to uncover but Cristobal’s 2024 salary is likely in the $8 million range.

Phil Steele ranks Miami has high as No. 10 in the country, in line to finish tied for first in the ACC with Clemson and Florida State because Cristobal fetched quarterback Cam Ward (Washington State) and halfback Damien Martinez (Oregon State) out of the transfer portal.

Miami is not scheduled against any projected Top 25 teams on the road, which feeds the annual hype that The U is back. But the Hurricanes must open at Florida as well as make a visit to Louisville Oct. 19.

We’ll see.

The A&M hype train is led by a defense that Elko told Steele is the best that he has ever had. Klatt said he ranked A&M No, 25 in part because of his respect for offensive coordinator Collin Klein. ESPN’s FPI index starts A&M at No. 14, ahead of Clemson, Ole Miss, USC and Auburn.

Could be.

But A&M is 12-13 the last two seasons while losing seven of its last eight games against ranked opponents. Like Miami, the Aggies are perennial underachievers — and evidence that brand name bias is alive and well in college football.

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