Michigan State Ranked Top 10 By USA TODAY; Michigan At No. 64
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Michigan fans won't be happy with USA TODAY's pick for the No. 1 team in college football this season. The newspaper ranked all 128 FBS teams, and Ohio State came in at the top after its national championship win last year.
Coming off an 11-2, Cotton Bowl-winning season, Michigan State ranked in the top 10 at No. 9. The Spartans are currently riding an eight-game bowl streak dating back to their Champs Sports Bowl appearance in 2007. They've also won their last four bowl games - last season's Cotton Bowl, the 2013 Rose Bowl, the 2012 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl and the 2011 Outback Bowl.
Michigan, riding an offseason wave of Jim Harbaugh Mania, still went an average 5-7 last year and is projected as the 64th-best team, according to USA TODAY. The Wolverines haven't been to a bowl game since 2013 when they lost in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl to Kansas State. But expectations are high after Harbaugh was hired after orchestrating turnarounds at Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers.
The two in-state rivals play at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Oct. 17. And the top-ranked (for now) Buckeyes will play both major Michigan schools in back-to-back weeks: Michigan State on Nov. 21 in Columbus, and then against the Wolverines in the final week of the season, on Nov. 28 in Ann Arbor.
Other Big 10 teams came in at No. 22 (Nebraska), No. 24 (Wisconsin), No. 28 (Penn State), No. 34 (Minnesota), No. 60 (Iowa), No. 71 (Maryland), No. 76 (Rutgers), No. 82 (Northwestern), No. 95 (Indiana), No. 102 (Illinois) and No. 112 (Purdue) in the USA TODAY rankings.
Outside of the conference but still within the state, Western Michigan came in at No. 55, while Eastern nearly closed out the whole list at No. 123.