IMHO having Auburn and Stidham at four is way too low. I believe he is the best qb in the league. Tua has a chance but one half isn't enough to over vote Stidham.
Thirdly, Alabama has already lost two lbs for the season. Ergo they are overrated considerably. The starters are very good but the depth is not there.
The crew really likes Anfernee Jennings and appear to expect big things from Dylan Moses and Mack Wilson. A little thin maybe, but we expect a small group of guys who are performing at an all0conference level. It's projection, and maybe depth gets them, who knows. There's a lot of guesswork involved with trying to forecast and we're not gonna know all the little reports that come out of camps the way a hardcore fan will. Reputation is also a hard thing to overcome, and Alabama has earned it in spades in the LB unit.
Stidham at QB says more about the guys ahead of him than a knock on him. He had a really good year last year and more is expected of him. Like I said, it's all guesswork, but here's some of the stuff I dug out of the correspondence chain.
"Lock led the SEC in yards, QB rating, ypa, and our own adjusted ypa index. Ok, he could have had a higher completion %, but he was the SEC's best QB last season, and he's back for more."
"The starter matters more, and Drew Lock just had one of the most prolific seasons in conference history, and he returns 3 of his top 4 receivers. Yeah, new OC--and a pretty questionable one at that--but I'd be surprised if he didn't have another top shelf season."
"Hurts had a very good last year, particularly when you consider his running ability, and he's not even gonna start this year. Tua is the man, but Bama has the luxury of an excellent running threat off the bench. The rich get richer."
"Here's where the big picture comes into play. Alabama probably could win 10 games without completing a single pass, and they still get to have (I hope) a QB controversy this August. Hurts has somehow become so maligned he's arguably underrated. Yeah, he's a limited passer, but one hell of a dynamic runner. And limited as he might be, he still threw just one pick last year. And there's the national title game hero Tua, who probably wins the starting job, and has much more upside as a passer."
"Jake Fromm State Farm was pretty much everything the Bulldogs needed him to be, yet he still ranks just third. That speaks more to the strength of the position in the conference, not on Fromm. He's only going to get better."
"Fromm improved consistently across his freshman season, and seemed to even be ready for Bama in the title game. And then there's Justin Fields, one of the more impressive QB recruits in recent memory. It wouldn't surprise me if things get awkward as Kirby Smart tries to keep both happy. Still, that's what you call a good problem."
"Stidham was another guy who lived up to every bit of the hype. His numbers were slightly more pedestrian than the other top QBs, but he still played at a near-elite level. There is a small concern with the off-season surgery, but nothing to get hung up about."
"Stidham is for real, and he proved it last season. He passed for over 3k yards and had the highest completion % in the SEC at 66.5%. Expect him to continue to play at a high level in 2018 as well."
and while these aren't all, he took a small ding in one ballot: "I'm not as sold on Jarrett Stidham as others are. He's good, no doubt, but the running game, particularly Kerryon Johnson, made that offense go last year, and when he was out in the last two games, that became very obvious. Call me skeptical he takes some big step this year without that constraint."
So it's mostly not that we didn't like Stidham, more than we liked some other guys/units better. The biggest thing to remember is it's all just pissing in the wind. It's all for fun and like any other pre-season ranking it will all be meaningless in a month, and is just a pleasant way to kill some time.