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Tom Hart suggests there are 3 tiers of teams in college football, explains separations
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It can be hard to put together an accurate rankings list before a season has begun. Often times, a tier is a better direction to go.
SEC Network’s Tom Hart broke down his three key tiers of college football teams on Twitter Monday afternoon.
Welcome to college football season. My wholly unscientific breakdown of 3 key tiers of teams.
Tier One, Better Than Most Think and Can Scare the Best Teams on Their Schedule.
— Tom Hart (@tom_hart) August 21, 2023
Hart’s tier 1 was pretty straightforward, but had one outlier. He included Georgia, Michigan, Alabama, Ohio State, which lines up with the preseason AP Poll, but he put Washington in tier 1 as well. Washington sits at No. 10 in the AP Poll and hasn’t been looked at as a top-5 team to many analysts, but perhaps the Huskies could surprise people.
From there, Hart included Utah, Kansas State, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin in his “better than most think” tier. Utah and Kansas State both saw success last season and are looking to continue that into the 2023 season. North Carolina started off the year hot, but ended the season 4 straight losses. The Tar Heels will be leaning on star quarterback Drake Maye in 2023.
The Gamecocks are one of the most interesting teams heading into the 2023 season. They found mixed results in Shane Beamer’s second season, but had big wins against Tennessee and Clemson.
Wisconsin will begin a new era under head coach Luke Fickell and will be looking to turn some heads.
Hart’s final tier was “can scare the best team’s on their schedule,” and included Arkansas, Kentucky, Duke, Illinois, Oklahoma State and Missouri.
Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri were all mid-tier teams in the SEC last year, but if Hart’s prediction is right, they could all be trending upward.
