2007's Most Surprising College Football Teams

With parity becoming more apparent every year in college football, it has been quite common for each new season to produce several teams that greatly exceed their pre-season expectations. Listed below are five schools that have done so this year. It is not a definitive list as there may be (and probably are) teams that I have overlooked. Regardless, the five teams that I have chosen all have three common threads: they were all mainly built around players who were only two or three star recruits coming out of high school; their players are playing for the love of the game; and, their players understand that a team concept is more important than any individual awards that they might achieve.

1) KANSAS (11-1 with Orange Bowl game against Virginia Tech left). This team is by far the Cinderella team for 2007. The Jayhawks did not receive a single vote in the preseason AP and USA Today Coaches polls, was ranked 67^th by College Football News, and was picked by many publications to finish in the bottom third of the Big Twelve. Instead, they ended up just two wins short of playing for the national championship and as consolation will be playing in a BCS bowl. Coach Mark Mangino, in his 5^th year at Lawrence, molded a team of mainly two and three star recruits that averaged 44 points per game on offense and was solid defensively. Leading the way is cornerback Aqib Talib on defense and, on offense, diminutive sophomore quarterback Todd Reesing, a native Texan who was only lightly recruited by Lone Star schools.