Disclaimer: Jon Wilner is an AP Top 25 voter. His preseason ballot was published Aug. 3 and has been updated to include each team’s Top 25 ranking.
The Associated Press Top 25 poll turned 90 years old Monday morning with the release of the 2026 preseason rankings as determined by 69 media members across the country.
Increasingly, the preseason poll’s relevance has been called into question. We disagree and will address that matter momentarily.
First, our instant reaction to the rankings:
— The preseason poll stands as the perfect encapsulation of the sport’s evolving competitive landscape.
The Big Ten, which has produced the national champion for three consecutive years, owns the top two positions with No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Oregon. (It’s the first time since 1961 that the conference has occupied the No. 1 and 2 spots.)
The SEC, which has been light at the very top in recent years but possesses the greatest depth in major college football, claims five of the top 10 teams and leads all conferences with nine teams in the poll — one more than the Big Ten.
The two most powerful conferences in the sport combined to place 17 teams in the poll, four more than they had in the final AP rankings of the 2025 season.
— Meanwhile, the Big 12, which hasn’t won a College Football Playoff game in the post-realignment era, occupies just four spots in the entire poll.
Its highest-ranked representative is No. 12 Texas Tech, the defending conference champion that was shut out (23-0) by Oregon in the CFP quarterfinals last season.
In contrast to the Big 12, the ACC has an elite team, Miami, the national runners-up last season, which is No. 7 in the preseason poll. But the ACC claims just two other ranked teams, SMU and Louisville.
(Clemson is not included in the preseason poll for the first time since 2011.)
All told, the Power Four conferences account for all but one of the ranked teams. The 25th? Notre Dame, of course. The Irish are No. 4 in the poll and a betting favorite for the national championship.
— You might have noticed that half of the Football Bowl Subdivision is missing. No team from the Group of Six, which covers 70 schools, including the rebuilt Pac-12, was included in the preseason poll.
Boise State, which moved from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 this summer, tops the Group of Six contingent with 43 points, based on the AP voting system. That is the third highest-total of the teams that just missed the Top 25 behind Clemson (112) and Florida State (51).
It’s easy to spot the connection between the AP poll and the competitive chasm forming in the age of player compensation and the transfer portal. The talent flows upward like never before as the Group of Six struggles to hold its ground against the resource-rich Power Four schools.
Boise State’s 43 poll points were far more than the next team from the Group of Six, Navy, which had 10.
— Five teams earned first-place votes: No. 1 Ohio State had 40, followed by No. 2 Oregon with 14, No. 4 Notre Dame with six, No. 6 Indiana, the defending national champion, with eight and, lastly, No. 7 Miami with one.
The highly ranked teams with no first-place votes: No. 3 Georgia and No. 5 Texas, an indication of voter skepticism about the strength of the top of the SEC.
— Oregon’s No. 2 ranking is the highest preseason position in school history. The Ducks had been No. 3 on four occasions.
Coach Dan Lanning won the offseason by retaining many of his top players, including quarterback Dante Moore. But can he win the postseason?
— Washington appears in the preseason poll for the first time under coach Jedd Fisch, who enters his third season in Seattle.
The Huskies are No. 17, one spot behind Michigan, one spot ahead of Penn State and, notably, four behind Alabama (and former UW coach Kalen DeBoer).
With a veteran quarterback, Demond Williams Jr., and a soft schedule, UW is facing elevated expectations. Anything short of a nine-win regular season would be a disappointment.
— For just the third time this century, both BYU and Utah cracked the Top 25.
The fierce Big 12 rivals were together in the preseason poll in 2009 and 2022. This year, BYU debuts in the No. 14 position while the Utes, under new coach Morgan Scalley, are No. 21.
Utah fans are undoubtedly aware that their former coach, Kyle Whittingham, now with Michigan, is just five spots above.
— Arizona isn’t included in the preseason Top 25 despite returning quarterback Noah Fifita from a team that won nine games last year.
The dearth of support from voters likely reflects Arizona’s modest football reputation, its lack of year-over-year consistency and the Big 12’s place in the conference hierarchy.
Any SEC or Big Ten team entering a season with the Wildcats’ profile (elite quarterback, nine wins last year) would certainly have made the poll.
— Our last thought on the preseason poll addresses the relevance of the AP rankings themselves.
Created in 1936, the Top 25 poll existed for 88 years before athletes were allowed to transfer as often as they liked without penalty.
The movement of thousands of FBS players each offseason has sparked calls for the AP to abandon the preseason poll — that it’s too difficult for voters to know which teams are worthy of inclusion, which, in turn, leads to diminished accuracy.
And yes, the process of compiling a preseason ballot is more arduous than it used to be.
But in our view, the AP preseason poll has taken on greater importance in the transfer portal era as a means of maintaining a connection to its past.
With immense roster turnover unfolding on an annual basis — and with conference realignment severing ancient rivalries and multi-decade series — college football needs a continuous historical record more than ever.
Knowing the Big Ten has the preseason No. 1 and 2 teams for the first time in 65 years, for example, adds context to the state of play within the conference and across the FBS.
The AP preseason poll, and the weekly in-season editions that follow, provide a vital service that would be deeply missed if, like so many other aspects of the sport, it simply vanished.
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