Expert Shows No Respect for North Carolina in Early Rankings

College football analyst Phil Steele has ranked every team from one through 136. He does not think very highly of the North Carolina Tar Heels as he ranked Bill Belichick's squad to finish outside the top 50.

Steele has North Carolina checking in at No. 57.

At least he didn't rank the Tar Heels dead last, like he did Kent State. The most average team is the Toledo Rockets who are smack dab right in the middle of the list at No. 68.

Last season, the Rockets went 8-5 and had a topsy-turvy year. They dismantled Mississippi State in Starkville 41-17, while losing to Akron, who finished 4-8. The Rockets lost five games, going 0-5 when scoring less than 21 points. They were pretty futile on offense.

Steele ranked Penn State University as the top team in the country. The Nittany Lions lost in the College Football Playoff semifinal to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in January. Should Penn State go wire-to-wire and win the title, it would be the third consecutive national championship for the Big 10.

Penn State has a lot of weapons coming back. They return Drew Allar at quarterback as well as leading rushers Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen.

The Nittany Lions lost their defensive coordinator Tom Allen to Clemson. All head coach James Franklin did was hire Jim Knowles who served in the same capacity for the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes.

Penn State does lose a key player from last year's defense which surrendered only 16.5 point per game. It is hard to replace a player like edge rusher Abdul Carter, who was the third pick of the NFL Draft by the New York Giants. They do bring back safety Zakee Wheatley, cornerback A.J. Harris and defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton.

The highest-ranked team from the Atlantic Coast Conference in Steele's rankings is Clemson which is ranked No. 6. The Miami Hurricanes are ranked No. 14 in the poll. Last year's College Football Playoff team Southern Methodist falls to No. 23, while Louisville is ranked No. 29. Florida State and Georgia Tech start the season at No.'s 36 and 27 respectively.

Virginia Tech is No. 41 and Duke rounds out the top 50, checking in at No. 48.

The entire list of the 136 teams can be found here.

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