ASU Football: Sun Devils ranked in preseason USA Today Coaches Poll

Arizona State has been ranked No. 18 with 358 total points in the preseason USA Today Coaches Poll, which was released on Thursday morning.

The Sun Devils finished last season ranked at No. 20 in the Coaches Poll, falling three spots after their loss to Texas Tech in the National University Holiday Bowl. But now jump back up two spots.

Many other Pac-12 teams made this list, including Oregon at No. 4, UCLA at No. 7, Stanford at No. 11, USC at No. 15 and Washington at No. 25. Notre Dame also made the list at No. 17. The Sun Devils play every ranked Pac-12 team except Oregon, and will go on the road to play the Huskies and Trojans.

While it's not the official AP Poll, it's important to note that the college football landscape has changed. The computers are gone and a committee will now decide on the four teams to compete in the college football playoff. This means that the top four teams in either poll may not necessarily be the ones who make it into the four-team playoff.

The Sun Devils lost a ton on defense, and actually jumped up from the end of last season. This demonstrates how highly coaches think of not only Todd Graham's coaching abilities, but also the potential of the Arizona State offense. This certainly gives the Sun Devils a lot brighter outlook on 2014 than the Pac-12 media poll, which was released last week and had the Sun Devils finishing third in the Pac-12 South.