ESPN's FPI rankings have Miami in the top 10, but it doesn't tell the whole story

ESPN dropped its FPI rankings this week and the Miami Hurricanes are in the top 10, which should not be surprising at all. But this ranking, as with most preseason rankings, doesn't mean anything more than the ridiculous amount of numbers used to make these calculations.

Miami is 7th overall, one spot behind Indiana. Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, Oregon and Georgia make up the top five with Alabama, LSU and Texas Tech rounding out the top 10. But there are a lot of numbers within the total number that tell a greater story.

Miami is No. 7 in ESPN's FPI, but what does it really mean?

Let's be honest, the FPI is fairly useless. I'm one of those guys that hates all preseason polls, but they are even more worthless in today's college games because of the widespread transfers and greater urgency to put freshmen on the field. That's a lot of speculation based on a lot of unknowns. Indiana is sixth based on a belief in Curt Cignetti as a coach, which I'm fine with, but they have a lot of new faces and that should also be acknowledged. 

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Ok, off the soap box and back to the numbers. The only number that matters in college football is wins. And I'm not talking about expected wins either. Just plain old wins. The ones where the winning team has more points at the end of the game than the team they were playing. If we're talking real wins, Miami's number increases to third in projected wins.

1) Texas Tech Red Raiders 10.8
2) Notre Dame Fighting Irish 10.7
3) Miami Hurricanes 10.4
4) Ohio State Buckeyes 10.2
(tie) Oregon Ducks 10.2

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There's plenty of data that shows when things go live all the FPI stuff gets thrown out the window. Based on certain metrics like production from returning starters, the top of the FPI makes sense. Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, Oregon and Georgia all have returning quarterbacks and most of them have at least a few key players returning as well. Does Miami get punished a little for having a transfer come in at QB? Probably and that's with the general assumption that Darian Mensah is going to be a better fit for the offense than Carson Beck. There are also a couple of unproven guys on defense that are expected to step up as well, but replacing first-round NFL draft picks can be a tall order.

At the end of the day, the FPI is probably best served as a primer to the official preseason AP poll, which also doesn't mean much to me. Will Texas Tech still be a top-10 team without Brendan Sorsby plugged in as the starting quarterback? That seems like a risky bet. Hurricane fans should look at the FPI as less of a science and more of a theory because when the whistle there's no set of numbers that matter more than the points on the scoreboard. 

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