Bottom 10: How Michigan went from nationwide champs to our

• Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Citizen WriterAug 20, 2024, 06:45 AM ET Close Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com 2-time Sports Emmy winner
• 2010, 2014 NMPA Author of the Year

Inspiring idea of the week:

There’s a house honey, method throughout town
People originating from miles around
Place on your beautiful red gown
Let’s go see about this mess
That’s it, infant let’s git
And go way far upon the hill

We’re gon na have an entire lotta enjoyable
We gon na greet the risin’ sun
All night long we gon na ball
Up until we hear yo mom call
That’s it, baby let’s git
And go way far upon the hill

There’s an excitement upon the hill
Let’s go, let’s a-go, let’s go

— “Let’s Go” Hank Ballard and The Midnighters

Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, currently stashed in a storage container on the freighter ship bring Desmond Howard’s pocket squares to Ireland for “College GameDay,” we are all set to be resurrected from our winter/spring/summer football hibernation. Now let’s hope the teams on the list you will receive are ready to do the same.Conference breakdowns To assist you prepare for the 2024 season, Bill Connelly is previewing every conference and breaking down the leading players and postseason contenders. Previews”Same. That’s a word that we won’t utilize much during the 2024-25(like, way into’25) college football season. Realignment has actually bankrupted Rand-McNally. The transfer website has actually been like a merry-go-round hooked up to Max Verstappen’s RB20, the spring design. And when December gets here, it will bring with it a 12-team College Football Playoff that is created to lastly make everyone happy and will likely make no one happy.That’s why the arrival of the Bottom 10 feels like a warm hug from your granny. It’s still the exact same it’s always been.

It’s familiar. It’s soft. It smells a little like eggs. However in a world that feels as unclear as Tim Legler in an L.A. earthquake, it is likewise the anchor we need … even if the teams who brought it to us always forget to pull that anchor off the bottom of the ocean before attempting to cruise. Y’ all much better start. Dez needs his squares.With apologies to Napoleon McCallum, John Paul Jones and Steve Harvey, here are the preseason Bottom 10 rankings for 2024. Ty Pennington’s university joins the ranks of FBS and thusly includes its name to the distinguished Annowls, er, Annals of Bottom 10 Owls, taking their head-turning perch on a dry-rotted tree branch together with Temple, Rice and FA( not I) U. The Warhawks bring in brand-new head coach Bryant Vincent, who instantly felt a draft in his office. When he traced the air leak into the locker room, he discovered a transfer portal exit tunnel hidden behind a Louisiana-Monroe schedule poster, practically like he was the warden in “The Shawshank Redemption.” The Golden Flashes, winners of one game in 2023, will spend three of their

very first four weekends traveling to Pitt, Tennessee and Penn State. The bright side is the school will get big checks for those journeys. The problem is it will wind up spending the majority of that money on BenGay and Band-Aids. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, however Akron takes a trip to Kent State on Nov. 19 for what could be the Bottom 10 Pillow Fight of the Century of the Year. So, go on and circle it. In crayon. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for the Wolverines to win the national title or perhaps to dominate package office together with “Deadpool.” Rather, Go Blue has actually decided to go all-in on a public thumbing of their cumulative Big Home noses at the NCAA, whether it be left head coach Jim Harbaugh at the press conference podium in Los Angeles or the decision to defiantly invite him back for the season opener after he ‘d been handed a show-cause by the folks in Indianapolis. I’m no professional on thumbing one’s nose, however I am a little a specialist on the Wolverine, and nobody must ever thumb their nose using adamantium claws.

The Minutemen will play their last season as an independent before moving to #MACtion in 2025. However wait simply a, well, minute here. If you’re a Minuteman, isn’t fighting for independence like your entire thing?

The 2nd flock of Owls in our rankings will play previous Bottom 10 stalwart-turned-bowl routine R.O.C.K. in the UTSA during Week 13. Why is that significant? Due to the fact that UTSA hosts Kennesaw State in Week 1 … gos to Rice in Week 7 … and invites FAU in Week 8 … which means in 2024 the Roadrunners will go beak-to-beak with all four FBS Owls. So, do they have to play all those games in the evening?

New Minors head coach Scotty Walden led a winning program in FCS at Austin Peay, where the for-real school cheer is “Let’s go Peay!” Now he’s going to be walking the Sun Bowl screaming, “Let’s go U-T-E-Peay!” which sounds like a condition one might require to require to their urologist.

This area boiled down between a set of #MACtionites in Baller State and the Buffalo Bulls Not Costs. The Cards have actually been in the Bottom 10 deck ever since 2015, the last of Pete Lembo’s five seasons in Muncie. Now he’s head coach at Buffalo. The teams play Nov. 12. Till then, the Bottom 10 status of both will likely remain in, yes, Lembo.

The prodigal Panthers return. Back in 2014, this group was the very first champ of a Ryan McGee-chosen Bottom 10. However, they ultimately turned the Atlanta street corner and became semi-annual bowl visitors under head coach Shawn Elliott, consisting of last season’s 7-6 squad that won the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. However Elliott shockingly left the group two days into spring practice and his Georgia State lineup delved into the portal like it was a 6 Flags Over Georgia waterslide. So, who did State Not Southern hire to take over? Dell McGee. Are we related? No. Are we family? Now we are, yes.Waiting list

: Charlotte 3-and-9ers, EC-Yew, Buffalo Bulls Not Costs, Sam Houston we have an issue, Fa-La-La-La-La Tech, State of New Mexico and New Mexico State, UCan’t, maps … all of them.