The Preseason Coaches Poll came out on Tuesday. While the coaches got almost everything right, there are still a few bones to pick with the teams ranked No. 16 through No. 25. Clemson came in at No. 23, much to CBS Sports' Tom Fornelli's chagrin. He went on a 50-second social media rant about the Tigers being ranked. You would have thought he received multiple degrees from South Carolina.
It was easy to peg Clemson at No. 23 coming into the first Coaches Poll, but Fornelli was not having it.
"You know, I don't wanna get triggered by the Coaches Poll in early August, but it came out today and Clemson No. 23?" Fornelli said. "The same Clemson that went 7-6 last year? Lost its QB? Lost pretty much every player it had on both sides of the line of scrimmage? Lost to teams like Syracuse and zombie Penn State. That's the Clemson we're putting at No. 23, coaches?"
Fornelli let his Illinois leanings overtake him by crushing Clemson for being ranked instead of his Illini.
"Did you just not know any other teams?" Fornelli continued. "Did you get to the end of your ballot and not know what to do? What's the thought process behind this one? It makes no sense. I know they won a national title or two a couple of years ago, but it's not really been going that way for a while. So to have them at No. 23 just, yeah... Let's hope the AP voters do a little bit better."
It might be the first week of August, but what exactly have the Illini done to be ranked over Clemson?
Clemson, huh? pic.twitter.com/7omsvWiKfz
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) August 4, 2026
While Dabo Swinney needs to figure out a way to navigate Clemson's harsh reality, so too do the Illini. Only two teams were ranked ahead of Clemson in Miami (No. 7) and SMU (No. 20). As for Illinois, eight other Big Ten teams cracked the the top 25 in Ohio State (No. 1), Oregon (No. 2), Indiana (No. 6), USC (No. 14), Michigan (No. 16), Penn State (No. 17), Washington (No. 19), and Iowa (No. 22). Let that sink in.
Even though Clemson came up well short of expectations a year ago, Illinois has yet to break through.
Clemson has a better shot of making College Football Playoff than Illinois
If we were to look at all the tallied-up votes from the Preseason Coaches Poll, we could easily see that Clemson's 235 points more than triples Illinois' 62. Clemson comfortably cracked the top 25 by nearly 100 points. Illinois was the fourth other team receiving votes. This is not to say that Illinois will never become a ranked team at various points this season, but the Illini must earn their way into the top 25.
As even more evidence for why Clemson deserved to be ranked several spots ahead of Illinois, let's take a gander at ESPN's Football Power Index. Clemson's FPI ranking of 19 obliterates the Illini's FPI ranking of 39. If we moved over a few columns to each team's projected percentage chance to make the College Football Playoff, Clemson's 22.3-percent odds annihilate the Illini's 4.7-percent chances.
Clemson has the second-best odds in the ACC to make the 12-team field behind only Miami at 63.3 percent. As for Illinois, it has the 10th-best odds to qualify out of the Big Ten, behind the eight teams mentioned above who will start the year out ranked in the Coaches Poll, and middling Nebraska at 7.2 percent. Clemson has the far better chance of winning its league and therefore, reaching the playoffs.
Overall, Clemson is a program outsiders just love to hate. Whether it be Paul Finebaum, Joel Klatt, Greg McElroy, or now Fornelli, this list is sure to grow between now and Week 1. With Clemson playing a manageable conference schedule, all the Tigers need to do is look the part in their two SEC games with LSU and South Carolina to have a solid shot of making the playoffs. They must get to Charlotte.
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