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Phil Steele releases preseason Top 10 for 2021

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

There’s still a lot of time between now and the start of the 2021 college football season. That won’t stop college football guru and popular magazine publisher Phil Steele from releasing his preseason Top 10 for the 2021 campaign.

Recently, Steele revealed his preseason Top 10 for the upcoming season, but only one B1G team made the cut. Ohio State, coming off a 7-1 year and national championship appearance, was ranked No. 5 on the list.

Here’s the complete Top 10 from Steele:

  1. Alabama Crimson Tide
  2. Clemson Tigers
  3. Georgia Bulldogs
  4. Oklahoma Sooners
  5. Ohio State Buckeyes
  6. Texas A&M Aggies
  7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
  8. North Carolina Tar Heels
  9. Iowa State Cyclones
  10. Cincinnati Bearcats

Ohio State has won four-straight B1G titles and has reached the College Football Playoff each of the last two seasons. They’ll have plenty of talent back on the field in 2021, but the question is how the Buckeyes will perform at quarterback with Justin Fields departing.

Still, Ryan Day’s team will be the favorite to win a conference title for a fifth-straight season.

Missing from Steele’s Top 10 are Northwestern, which closed out the 2020 campaign with a 7-2 record, winning a B1G West title and defeating Auburn in the Citrus Bowl, and Indiana, who’s only regular season loss was to Ohio State.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB