With the start of spring practice still several weeks away following National Signing Day next month, college football's offseason has officially begun.

For the first time in several years, we saw three elite teams separate themselves from the rest of the pack and surprisingly, Alabama wasn't included in that trifecta. The Crimson Tide lost multiple games during the regular season and took an unexpected slide defensively, a product of injuries and a first-year DC battling through adversity.

A unanimous selection inside the Top 5 in every way-too-early preseason poll to surface thus far, Alabama isn't in its usual No. 1 or 2 hole, however. Those spots belong to behemoths Clemson and Ohio State, two programs who battled to an epic finish in a semifinal clash last month.

Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide are hoping to wipe the slate clean and begin anew as a title contender.

"I think that we have a culture of how we play football at Alabama, with great effort, great toughness, but also discipline to execute and accountability for everybody to do their job," Nick Saban said after beating Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. "That's always been the trademark of what we do. And people make decisions based on what's best for the team.

"And I thought that maybe at the end of the year this year in a couple games that we played, you know, half of the LSU game and maybe at Auburn, we didn't really do that the way -- to the standard that I would like and to our expectation, and I think the players realized that."

Pete Fiutak of College Football News released his 'First Look' preseason Top 25 for 2020 earlier this month, one that's a good bit different from our own. Here are his rankings in full, along with our thoughts on the selections and where teams fall: