ESPN releases 2023 College Football SP+ Top 25

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The college football offseason is in full swing, but it’s never too early to look ahead to the upcoming season. ESPN’s Bill Connelly is getting in the spirit already, releasing his initial SP+ Top 25 Tuesday morning.

The SP+ has three factors to it. The first is returning production, meaning which teams bring back the most from a year ago. Then, recent recruiting and recent history also play a role in determining where teams are ranked. Connelly defines it as “a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year.”

The No. 1 team isn’t much of a surprise considering Georgia is coming off back-to-back national championships. Then, Ohio State — despite losing quarterback CJ Stroud to the NFL Draft — comes in at No. 2, closely followed by Michigan. Alabama and Penn State round out the top five.

Here is ESPN’s full SP+ top 25:

JD PicKell evaluates how the loss of Stetson Bennett could impact Georgia’s quest for three-peat

For the second consecutive offseason, Georgia is gearing up to defend a national championship. This one’s a little different than the last, though.

Stetson Bennett is out of eligibility and will try to take his talents to the NFL Draft, meaning there will be a changing of the guard at quarterback in Athens. Bennett was the starter for both national title runs, and that opens the door for someone else will have to pick up where he left off to keep the Bulldogs atop the mountain.

Considering how different Bennett’s impact was in 2022, On3’s J.D. PicKell said this offseason presents an opportunity for Kirby Smart.

“While Stetson Bennett wasn’t the catalyst to your 2021 national championship, he definitely was for the 2022 national championship,” PicKell said on The Hard Count. “Kirby Smart has yet to win a national title without Stetson Bennett. Far be it for me to say it can’t be done. I am not saying that by any stretch of the imagination. But by definition, Kirby Smart has yet to have the opportunity to do it — or, more or less, have the opportunities to do it going forward — without Stetson Bennett. … That’s the bad news. You lose your QB.”