The most disrespectful rankings yet for Michigan State football

The preseason college football AP Poll was just released on Monday and to nobody’s surprise Michigan State football did not make the cut. Usually, this poll coming out is an exciting time because we all want to see how the national media views the Spartans heading into the season, but we unfortunately don’t get to see that this season in the AP Poll.

However, many college football experts release their own individual rankings which expands upon the top 25. Some go as far as doing a top 50 while one individual ranked all 134 FBS teams.

That is what RJ Young with FOX just did, and where he ranked Michigan State has to be the most disrespectful I’ve seen yet.

There have been other examples of media ranking MSU far too low, but this one from Young takes the cake.

As you’ll see in the above graphic, Young has Michigan State ranked No. 82 in the country. Yes, you read that correctly, 82. I get that MSU isn’t a top 25 team right now, and I’m not saying they should be anywhere close to the top 25 either, but being No. 82 isn’t just disrespectful, but it shows that Young didn’t do his homework.

Too much emphasis is being put on the struggles of last year’s team. The problem with that is that this year’s team is completely different from a season ago. A brand new coaching staff is in town and about half the roster are new players to the program. He also needs to factor in that a lot of these new players are also very good and not just your average, middle-of-the-pack transfer.

Aidan Chiles, Jack Velling, Tanner Miller, Jalen Satchell, and Wayne Matthews III are just a few of the impact transfers who will make Michigan State much better this season. But these five players I mentioned also show us why Young’s ranking makes no sense.

The first three players mentioned are all from Oregon State and the last two are both from Old Dominion. They were all some of the better players on their old teams, so losing them really hurts both of those programs. But Young still has both Oregon State and Old Dominion somehow listed above Michigan State.

There are many other teams I could make a compelling argument for that should not be ranked above Michigan State, but there’s no need for that anymore. MSU’s season is almost upon us and I have no doubt in my mind that they’ll be able to prove people like Young wrong who actually believe Michigan State isn’t even in the top 80 in the country.