FOX Sports talking head Colin Cowherd recently released his preseason top 10 teams.

Cowherd ranks the teams based on where he thinks they’ll end up as opposed to where they enter the season.

He’s known for poking the bear, and he does that again this year with Alabama ranked No. 4 entering the season, behind Ohio State, FSU and USC. Most everyone in college football has the Crimson Tide ranked preseason No. 1.

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“I look at your schedule from late October to November,” Cowherd explained prior to ranking the teams. “I want to see your last five or six weeks of schedule. If you have tough road games, you will not end up in the top 10.”

Although Cowherd is high on Auburn, the Tigers didn’t make the top 10 because of their tough stretch to close the season.

“I like Auburn a lot. Auburn doesn’t make the cut because they have a brutal schedule from mid-October on.”

Here’s Cowherd’s preseason top 10:

10. Wisconsin
9. Louisville
8. Penn State
7. Clemson
6. Oklahoma
5. Washington
4. Alabama
3. USC
2. FSU
1. Ohio State

With respect to Alabama, Cowherd explained his reasoning at No. 4.

“Alabama only has 11 starters returning, and they lost a bunch of playmakers in the box defensively,” Cowherd said. “They will not be as suffocating on defense, and Jalen Hurts has some limitations as a quarterback vertically. I think Alabama ends up here on sheer coaching. I think their secondary is amazing. It will be a kind of a boring, typical, pound-the-football Alabama team.”