Preseason poll season is upon us.

That’s what happens when you have 2.5 months until media days and you need something to talk about. And hey, it gave me something to talk about today.

But as is always the case with these preseason polls, some teams are getting too much love and some teams aren’t getting enough love.

Here are two of each of those from the B1G:

Too much love

Penn State

Rankings: No. 9 (The Athletic), No. 12 (Sporting News), No. 14 (Sports Illustrated), No. 20 (CBS Sports), No. 21 (USA Today)

I think my boldest preseason prediction is that Penn State is in for a very 2015-like year. That is, relatively high expectations that don’t yield conference title-contending results. I have a variety of reasons for that, but they’re mainly associated with James Franklin handling all the roster attrition. That is, I don’t trust him to do that.

The thought of Penn State starting the year as a top-10 team to me is absolutely bonkers considering the Lions lost their most prolific quarterback in program history and they rank No. 100 in FBS in percentage of returning production. That’s the product of an offseason full of bizarre player departures.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s still talent in State College and that’s a credit to Franklin’s recruiting. Having some potential sophomore stars in Ricky Slade and KJ Hamler will help, and if the Lions receivers can avoid the drop issues that they dealt with throughout 2019, they’ll stand a better chance of actually beating some elite teams (something Penn State hasn’t done since the 2017 Fiesta Bowl).

But I have a tough time believing that Penn State, who has a 5-game losing streak against the likes of Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State, is now worthy of starting its first post-Trace McSorley era season better than where it finished last year.

Nebraska

Rankings: No. 17 (CBS Sports), No. 19 (USA Today), No. 24 (Sports Illustrated), No. 25 (Sporting News)

Look. I get it. I lived in Nebraska for the better part of 3 years and I know what the Husker hype train looks like. It takes off faster than others in the preseason because of how badly the fans want it and how much the season is anticipated. That goes double when you finish a season like Nebraska did in Year 1 of the Scott Frost era (4-2 with 2 one-possession road losses to top-25 teams).

I don’t blame anyone for the Husker hype train leaving the station after a couple years of bowl-less postseasons. That’s what I expected. But is it going a little too fast? Absolutely.

Just because Nebraska has its most promising quarterback and head coach combination in a couple decades doesn’t mean this thing will automatically fix itself. I’m still worried about the defensive side of the ball, where Nebraska was No. 88 nationally in scoring and it returns just 55% of its production.

Losing someone like Luke Gifford on the defensive side and Devine Ozigbo in the backfield might not be considered insurmountable hurdles, but those are major holes to fill. That’s the thing. Yes, it’s Year 2 of the Frost era, which we all know was when he took UCF to an unprecedented new height. But it’s a different story to make that kind of jump in the improving B1G West, especially when you rank No. 12 in the conference in returning production.

Could Nebraska finish as a top-20 team? Absolutely. But to start there suggests that last year’s undisciplined 4-win team has some massive influx of talent. I’ll wait and see.

Not enough love

Iowa

Rankings: No. 18 (The Athletic), No. 18 (Sports Illustrated), No. 25 (CBS Sports)

Wait a minute. Iowa is coming off a 9-win season, it has who I believe to be the front-runner to be the B1G’s first player drafted in A.J. Epenesa, and it returns a third-year starting quarterback in Nate Stanley who has a bevy of returning pass-catchers despite the losses of Noah Fant and T.J. Hockenson.

What am I missing?

My problem is that in the majority of the publications I highlighted here, Nebraska is getting more preseason love than Iowa. That’s just bizarre when Iowa won the Heroes Game for the fourth straight year — I know that the Huskers were on the road and they made it a nail-biter — and it had more than twice as many wins as Nebraska last year. Again, though, these are preseason rankings. Iowa, unlike Nebraska, ranks in the top 50 nationally in returning production.

By the way, that Nebraska win was the first time all year that Iowa won a one-possession game. To that point, the Hawkeyes were 0-3 in those type of games. That’s for a team that yes, was only 5-4 in B1G play, but was also +109 against the conference. Here’s a list of the other Power 5 teams who were +100 against conference foes last year:

Michigan

Ohio State

Oklahoma

West Virginia

Clemson

Washington State

Alabama

Georgia

That’s pretty good company. Now does Nate Stanley need to be more consistent? And does the Iowa running game need to find its identity? Yep and yep. But the fact that Iowa isn’t a consensus top-25 team to start the year is strange.

Michigan State

Rankings: No. 23 (Sports Illustrated)

I’ve already said in the preseason that I’m skeptical of MSU just because of Brian Lewerke’s shoulder, but I’m surprised the Spartans are only ranked in 1 of 5 publications with post-spring rankings.

Consider this. CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd ranked 8 B1G teams in his top 25 and MSU wasn’t one of them. Are we really under the impression that 8 B1G teams are better than the Spartans? I’m not.

MSU obviously has some tough losses in the secondary with the likes of Khari Willis and Justin Layne gone, but those are the only two starters the defense lost. Plus, they’ll get a healthy Josiah Scott back. MSU also has an All-American defensive end in Kenny Willekes (assuming he returns to full strength coming off the broken leg) and leading tackler Joe Bachie is back for his senior year. MSU’s 2018 strength — stopping the run — should be a strength again.

The offensive side of the ball is really what probably scared people off with MSU because it was dreadful last year after Lewerke got hurt. But if he’s not right — everyone says he’s back to his sophomore self — I’d still give MSU top-25 love because they have the pieces to improve up front with a more experienced offensive line and backup quarterback in Rocky Lombardi. Defenses won’t be able to load the box on MSU like when they knew Lewerke couldn’t stretch the field. That’ll be huge.

It’s ironic that last year, I actually thought MSU was getting too much preseason love because it returned as much production as anyone in the country. But I thought some regression was in store after a 2017 season in which MSU went 7-1 in games decided by 14 points or less. That proved to be the correct call (one of the few).

Now, though, we’re finally back to saying MSU isn’t getting enough respect. That feels right.