Todd Graham Arizona State

Well-traveled Arizona State coach Todd Graham led the Sun Devils to eight victories in his first season in Tempe.

(AP Photo | Ross D. Franklin)

And the third-highest ranked Syracuse opponent in the preseason lookahead is … Northwestern.

Yep, Northwestern. The experienced and well-coached Wildcats should be improved over last season. They lurk a bit later in today’s segment, which finally arrives at the top 25 after a lengthy wait this month.

25. Texas Christian

At the risk of reading too much into just a single season, Texas Christian turned in a Denny Green special in its first season in the Big 12.

In short, the Horned Frogs were who we thought they were.

Sure, TCU can score from time to time and did so last year, though the task was made substantially more difficult because quarterback Casey Pachall withdrew from school four games into the season to seek substance abuse treatment. But the Horned Frogs’ calling card is defense, and it was again last year.

TCU held Kansas State, Texas and Oklahoma to a combined 20 points a game over the final three weeks of the regular season. Sure, there were two losses in there, but the defense is legitimate (which seemed obvious enough anytime the Horned Frogs took on a brand-name opponent in the past).

In everything other than a slight increase in points allowed, the TCU defense shrugged off the conference switch. It allowed fewer yards (total, passing and rush) and surrendered fewer yards per play. It improved its sacks total. Their opponents’ completion percentage dipped to 53.2 percent. Pachall’s back this season, and many pieces of that defense are back. The Horned Frogs will be better than last year’s 7-6 mark.

Texas Christian in haiku:

Top-level corner

Jason Verrett's of immense

Value in Big 12

24. Cincinnati

Players come and go. Coaches come and go nearly as much. And Cincinnati keeps churning out 10-win seasons.

And why not again under Tommy Tuberville, who went from being a bit of an odd fit at Texas Tech to an out-of-nowhere choice at Cincinnati?

Beyond this year, the Bearcats won’t have the luxury of playing in a conference with an automatic BCS bid, and they won’t have as much money flowing into their coffers as some other schools. But an eroded league isn’t the worst thing in the world for a school with a modest football tradition for a half-century before things started rolling in 2006.

Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly and Butch Jones have more in common than using Cincinnati as a launching pad for their career aspirations. All three deftly sized up talent, and the Bearcats’ location (in Ohio, and a manageable distance from Chicago, western Pennsylvania and some southern recruiting grounds) is an asset so long as a skilled evaluator has the final say on matters.

Let’s suppose the Bearcats’ immediate future isn’t as bright as the back-to-back BCS bids the 2008 and 2009 teams landed. So what? Desperate as the school might be for a call from the ACC or another league, Cincinnati is well-positioned to remain the king of its restructured castle in the long run, and a sixth 10-win season in seven years isn’t out of the question this fall.

Cincinnati in haiku:

A most unlikely

Dynasty enters a new

Phase with Tuberville

23. Northern Illinois

A new quarterback and a totally new offense line meant no problems for Northern Illinois last seasons. Quite the opposite, actually.

If anyone had a more out-of-nowhere season than Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel last fall, it was the Huskies’ Jordan Lynch. He threw for more than 3,100 yards, rushed for a shade better than 1,800 yards and accounted for 44 total touchdowns.

So now he’s back, and so is the line that helped make it possible. Former coach Dave Doeren is gone, and he took the desire to find another Jordan Lynch (or Chandler Harnish, Lynch’s predecessor) once he got to N.C. State.

The offense is going to remain a bear and should be the best in the Mid-American Conference. Northern Illinois is one of nine schools to average 6.0 yards per play in three consecutive years; the others are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Baylor, Nevada, Oklahoma State, Oregon and Southern California. In other words, lots of college football royalty.

If regression will occur from last season’s 12-2 bunch, it will occur on defense. The Huskies won three times last year when they gave up at least 30 points (Army, Western Michigan and Kent State). That number is a good bet to increase if Northern Illinois remains atop the MAC.

Northern Illinois in haiku:

BCS busters

Again? Gotta beat Purdue

And Iowa first

22. Arizona State

The bitter jokes about Todd Graham’s geographically diverse family will not get old any time soon in certain precincts, namely the 412 area code that includes Pittsburgh (his one-year stop in 2011).

Still, you do have to hand it to the guy for coaxing such a solid season out of Arizona State upon arrival. (Just to clarify, you do not have to hand it to him for choosing not to bail on a school after one season for the third time in his head coaching career).

The Sun Devils’ defense made substantial progress a year ago and will have much of its talent returning this fall. No player is more important to that unit (or any defense in the Pac-12) than All-America tackle Will Sutton. In short, he’s a monster in the middle, and he will be making plenty of money another year from now.

At the moment, he’s part of a feisty defense that ranked first in the country in tackles for loss and second in sacks last season. It wasn’t great against the run, but it still kept Arizona State in most games.

The key here will be surviving a hazardous opening stretch. The Sun Devils face Wisconsin, Stanford, Southern California and Notre Dame between Sept. 14 and Oct. 5. It won’t be long before we know if this projection is guilty of overvaluing Graham’s second team in the desert.

Arizona State in haiku:

Todd Graham's family

And friends in Tempe should like

This year's Sun Devils

21. Northwestern

At this stage, the most transformative figure in a football program with a century or so in the books has his name on a stadium, or an award, or a major thoroughfare or all of the above. More often than not, he is dead.

He almost certainly is not still shy of age 40 and the winningest coach in school history, not to mention the most decorated player the program has ever seen.

It makes Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald such an intriguing figure. Coaches receive plenty of attention, for reasons obvious (they are the face of the program and they make a lot of money) and Machiavellian (they control the message, wanting credit and more money when things go well and hoping to deflect blame when they don’t). But less and less, they are not figures who last for decades.

Fitzgerald, the defensive hero of the Wildcats’ 1995 Rose Bowl team and a man who has piloted his alma mater to five consecutive bowl bids, possesses a little more gravitas when it comes to his team and his school. Now he has a team people outside Evanston think will be good; Purple Power has cracked the AP preseason top 25 for the first time since 2001.

The Wildcats have most of their offense back, including quarterbacks Kain Colter and Trevor Siemian. They also have to deal with Ohio State and Wisconsin in divisional crossover games. Northwestern should be every bit as good as its 10-3 season last year; nonetheless, it won’t be easy to match that win total.

Northwestern in haiku:

Three score and four years

Bowl win drought is done; just one

More Fitzgerald feat

Previously

» Teams 26-30: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Kansas State, Miami, Southern California

» Teams 31-35: UCLA, Virginia Tech, Washington, North Carolina, Baylor

» Teams 36-40: Mississippi, Georgia Tech, Fresno State, Tulsa, Penn State

» Teams 41-45: Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, San Jose State, Rutgers, Brigham Young

» Teams 46-50: Arizona, East Carolina, Tennessee, Utah State, Iowa State

» Teams 51-55: Arkansas, Texas Tech, N.C. State, Central Florida, West Virginia

» Teams 56-60: Missouri, Maryland, San Diego State, California, Pittsburgh

» Teams 61-65: Iowa, Utah, Syracuse, Navy, UL Monroe

» Teams 66-70: Auburn, Indiana, Washington State, Duke, Toledo

» Teams 71-75: South Florida, Bowling Green, Ball State, Wake Forest, Rice

» Teams 76-80: Ohio, Minnesota, Southern Methodist, Houston, UL Lafayette

» Teams 81-85: Nevada, Virginia, Connecticut, Air Force, Purdue

» Teams 86-90: Marshall, Boston College, Colorado State, Western Kentucky, Arkansas State

» Teams 91-95: Wyoming, Kentucky, Colorado, Middle Tennessee, Troy

» Teams 96-100: Kansas, Army, UAB, Western Michigan, New Mexico

» Teams 101-105: Illinois, Buffalo, Southern Mississippi, Kent State, Temple

» Teams 106-110: Louisiana Tech, Tulane, Texas-El Paso, Memphis, UNLV

» Teams 111-115: Hawaii, Central Michigan, Miami (Ohio), North Texas, Florida Atlantic

» Teams 116-120: Texas State, Florida International, Akron, Idaho, Eastern Michigan

» Teams 121-125: South Alabama, Texas San-Antonio, Massachusetts, New Mexico State, Georgia State