Not really. Every year teams are projected either to be good or not so good before they play a game. Why would Louisville be any different? Why is NC State ranked? Why is Kansas ranked? Why is ND so high in the polls?
There's only one reason that Louisville isn't pre-season ranked and it's been like this for years. There's a bias and I believe most media voters don't realize they have it. They don't give Louisville football the benefit of the doubt. They find another team similar and vote for them instead.
There's simply no other explanation why this Louisville team is not ranked. How can a team that went 7 and 1 in the ACC that returns all-Americans and all conference players along with the 2nd best portal ranking not be pre-season ranked? Does anyone truly believe an SEC team or Big 10 team wouldn't be ranked with similar results?
I find it curious that Louisville is #26. Good enough to be that close but not good enough to actually be in the top 25. I know this doesn't bother other fans as it does with this fan. Everything with Louisville football is on the upswing yet they still have to prove themselves before getting the recognition a pre-season ranking provides.
We have this chicken little mindset that everyone is out to get us. Sometimes it's laziness by the national media, but mainly it's due to the fact that national media doesn't follow our team as closely as we do. Fans tend to know the "real story!" about all of their teams. National media is only really focused on the teams that can win a national title in terms of what they're looking at in-depth. And let's be honest, we're not close to one of those teams like Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, & others. But I don't think it's disrespect, it's just some laziness and some of it time management because it's hard to go through 100 teams and know every detail.
I also think there's usually more BIAS for certain teams rather than bias against. Like Miami. I think this year there is some hype warranted with Cam Ward, but they've been ranked preseason most years and don't deserve it. But people see their recruiting rankings and know their past and they'll get votes. I don't think they look an disrespect us. Only 26 teams had 100+ points in the poll and we were the 26th. VT at #27 behind us had 77. So we do have some respect.
For starters, it's not like the voters conspired to keep us at #26. All of that is based on votes which means we essentially are the same as teams 20-25 as the votes aren't too different. The averages just kept us out. So we're right there with those teams but we view top 25 so heavy right now. Had we been like #40 or not received votes you could claim the disrespect conspiracy, but they have us right there. NC State being ahead of us is essentially a margin of error tie.
Where the national media sees we lost 2,000 yards in rushing from 2 NFL talents at back. A starting QB. 3 of our top 4 wideouts, including a NFL draft pick. A NFL draft pick at corner plus another talented corner in Duke. 3 Oline players who made NFL camps, including our heart and soul Hudson. So they aren't looking at it and seeing a few ALL ACC returnees and it's the same team, this is a fundamentally different team. Not saying that all is lost, I think we're a better team than last year, but when we're being evaluated by non-Louisville people that's what they see.
Then look at the macro view of NC State. We played them and beat them in a game we were fortunate to win, but they were a pretty young team that didn't begin to click until they brought in a new QB and they finished strong. They return a good bit along with Grayson McCall. They rate them pretty much the same as us. They don't have as much new, the voters kind of saw a solid team that didn't have a good offense most of the year and still ended up being decent. But again, we are rated essentially the same as NC State and they probably have a few more points that just move them up slightly.
Where we can look and see Shough as the easy improvement over Plummer and how our running backs are underrated and it's plug it in and go, the media sees transfers and Brohm is a good coach so they give us some benefit of the doubt. But the #2 portal class is subjective because that's mainly because we added almost 30 players, decent quality but thinking they're hating on us and ignoring a #2 transfer class is misleading. They just saw we added a ton in the portal. I'll also point out that our highest rated transfer is still counted on our list in Penny Boone.
But we're still rated with the top 25 teams in terms of the votes. And if we win week 1 and week 2 running away, we're going to move up because we're right there. BEat Georgia Tech to go 3-0 and we'll be top 20 going to Notre Dame for a big week. We're right there. Respect is earned and we have a schedule where we can either go take it or we'll fall. It's on us.
