On August 2nd, the college football ranking buzz officially began with the release of the 2018 preseason Amway Coaches Poll. Obviously, smart fans everywhere will proclaim “it doesn’t really matter”! They’d be right to do exactly that. Generally speaking, what preseason polls postulate often differs from the final result.

After all, this time last year the UCF Knights didn’t even receive a single vote into the top 25 of the first Coaches Poll (fellow American Athletic Conference-mates the Memphis Tigers had 22 and the Houston Cougars had 8) and now as defending National Champions, they were the only undefeated team in the country during 2017

But while it says nothing about what could happen on the field, here are three takeaways from the Knights no. 23 ranking.

Motivation for the year

Reason No. 130 why there’s no complacency around here. pic.twitter.com/NfxM4Y9cQF — UCF Football (@UCF_Football) August 2, 2018

In this instance, I’m going to lead with the positive. New head coach Josh Heupel and new defensive coordinator have the “us against the world” underdog motivator just like Scott Frost did last year as the former head coach. Are you one of those that don’t buy into UCF’s National Championship? That’s fine — unless a program was named Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Clemson or Ohio State, they finished behind the Peach Bowl Champion Knights for the 2017 season.

Now try and imagine seeing yourself as a veteran on that team ranked sixth in the nation now barely sneaking into the top 25 of a preseason poll? I know the former O-linemen in me would be ready to pound the sled a little bit harder in practice every time I’m reminded of that . . . especially with the local and mainstream media asking countless variations on the question, “do you feel disrespected by this ranking”? I’m personally looking forward to seeing players react to questions about the Civil Conflict trophy going into their week one road trip against the Connecticut Huskies. I expect miles of snark even from the most buttoned-up guys.

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