In 1950, The Associated Press released a preseason college football poll for the first time. It had been ranking teams, starting midseason, for 14 years, and the venture proved popular enough to expand the reach a bit.
Granted, the accuracy of that initial poll was shaky. Preseason No. 1 Notre Dame would go just 4-4-1, while No. 12 USC would go just 2-5-2 — perhaps not the only time in the history of the sport that these two teams have started out overrated. But the best teams at the end of the year (Oklahoma, Army and Texas went a combined 25-1, and Texas’ only loss was to Oklahoma) were all ranked in the top six in the preseason. It was a worthy exercise in setting expectations and generating conversation, and it has remained mostly that for the nearly 75 years since.
As a set of predictions, the poll hasn’t really gotten any better: In the last 28 years, only three eventual national champions began the season at No. 1. Not even this era of Alabama dominance has improved accuracy — Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide have begun the season at No. 1 six times and have finished the season at No. 1 six times, but they have somehow done both in the same season only once (2017).
Still, the preseason poll can be particularly useful if you know what you’re looking for. With the release of the 2022 rankings — in which Alabama once again starts out No. 1 — I looked back at the AP’s last 25 years of pre- and postseason rankings and found some pretty reliable trends. Let’s walk through them.
One of the top six teams will win the national title
Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State Seminoles went 12-2 in 2012 and recorded their first top-10 finish since 2000. After stumbling late in the Bobby Bowden era, they had finally risen back toward the nation’s elite. But heading into 2013, they were looking at replacing first-round quarterback E.J. Manuel with a redshirt freshman named Jameis Winston. There was plenty of reason to assume the defense would still be excellent, but uncertainty on offense meant they began the season ranked just 11th in the preseason poll.
Winston became the second straight redshirt freshman to win the Heisman and gave the Noles a dynamite offense to pair with its elite defense. FSU charged to 14-0, with no opponent able to stay within 14 points until Auburn in the BCS championship game.
That was the last time a team began the season lower than sixth and won it all. It’s happened only three times in the last 18 seasons, and in one of those three (Florida in 2006), the champ started out seventh.
We had a run of unexpected title runs at the turn of the century: Co-champ Michigan began the 1997 season 14th, 1998 champ Tennessee started out 10th, 2000 champ Oklahoma was 19th, 2002 champ Ohio State was 13th and after losing Heisman winner Carson Palmer to the pros, USC began the 2003 season just eighth. But since Saban arrived at Alabama in 2007 and redefined what being a title team requires, the sport has become a bit more predictable. And we can say with confidence that one of this year’s top six teams — No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Clemson, No. 5 Notre Dame or No. 6 Texas A&M — will take the crown.
Of course, if you’ve been paying attention this offseason, you already knew this. The sports books don’t think you even need six guesses to find the champion — three will do. Caesars Sportsbook has been listing an “Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State versus the field” prop bet, and the odds for that trio of teams is down to -380, equivalent to a 79% chance. (A Bama-and-Georgia-only prop is now at -115, equivalent to 53%.)
To be sure, for those of us who enjoy a wide-open and eventful national title race, heading into the season feeling like you already know who will occupy three of the College Football Playoff’s four spots isn’t particularly energizing. But here’s some comfort: Over these last 25 years, only 32 of 75 teams in the preseason top three actually finished in the top three. Just last year, the No. 2 (Oklahoma) and No. 3 (Clemson) teams finished ranked in double digits. Even if this year’s top three are stronger than normal, the journey always features surprises.
Meanwhile, one of the themes of my writing this offseason has been how the No. 4 spot is completely up for grabs. The preseason poll certainly backs that up. While the top three teams all landed between 1,566 and 1,455 votes, the teams ranked fourth through eighth were all clustered between 1,292 and 1,203.
Two top-10 teams will finish unranked
On average, 5.4 of the teams in the preseason top 10 also finish the year there, while 2.8 finish between 11th and 25th and 1.8 end up unranked. Last year held pretty close to those averages at the top, with six top-10 finishers from the preseason list. But three teams bombed out.
Preseason No. 6 Texas A&M upset Alabama but found itself again beset by mediocrity at the quarterback position and went 8-4 — the third time in Fisher’s four seasons that the Aggies lost at least four games — and they had to opt out of their Gator Bowl appearance versus Wake Forest. Without a shot at a ninth win, they finished just outside the postseason Top 25. Meanwhile, No. 7 Iowa State found itself in the preseason top 10 for the first time, and No. 10 North Carolina was there for the first time in 24 years; they went 7-6 and 6-7, respectively.
Like Arizona in 1999 (12-1 the previous year), Pitt in 2003 (9-4 in 2002) or Louisville in 2007 (12-1 in 2006), both ISU and UNC were upstarts coming off particularly high-ebb seasons. But they went a combined 4-8 in one-score finishes last fall — the good fortune that helped to prompt their respective rises dissipated.
A reversal in close-game fortune could afflict quite a few teams in this year’s Top 10 too. Defending Big 12 champion Baylor eked out the No. 10 spot ahead of Oregon and Oklahoma State, but the Bears could be particularly vulnerable to such a reversal. Not only were they 4-1 in one-score finishes last year, but they are also replacing three of their top four receivers, their top two running backs and five of the top seven members of what was a dynamite secondary. Plus, incumbent starting quarterback Gerry Bohanon transferred after losing his job to late-2021 hero Blake Shapen; while the Bears’ upside at the position might be higher, their experience levels obviously are not.
That Baylor earned the No. 10 ranking despite such turnover was a sign of massive respect to what head coach Dave Aranda is building. And to be sure, they could have some of the best combined offensive and defensive line play in the country. But if there’s a letdown in this group of 10 (and there usually is), the Bears are prime candidates.
Plenty of others aren’t out of the woods either. No. 4 Clemson and No. 9 Oklahoma went a combined 11-3 in one-score finishes last season and proceeded to undergo major changes on their respective coaching staffs; Dabo Swinney is replacing both coordinators — and has an offense to rebuild after a dreadful 2021 performance — while Oklahoma replaced outgoing head coach Lincoln Riley with former Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables. The changes could be exactly what either team needs to jump back into the CFP race, but they could also lead to what are at least temporary steps backward if those teams can’t close tight games as well.
Two unranked teams will finish in the Top 10
Let’s flip this around and look at the postseason polls first. On average, the year-end top 10 indeed tends to consist of 5.4 teams that began the season in the top 10, plus 2.5 that started out ranked between 11th and 25th and 2.1 that weren’t ranked at all. After a brief lull — only two combined teams went from unranked to top 10 in 2019-20 — we saw a mini-explosion last year, when four teams did the deed: Michigan, Baylor, Oklahoma State and Michigan State.
Michigan in particular fulfilled a “fallen powerhouse on the mend” role that we saw a lot of at the beginning of the century, when teams like Colorado in 2001, Kansas State in 2002 and both Notre Dame and Penn State in 2005 all charged back into the top 10 after a recent downturn.
We can quibble about which teams actually qualify as powerhouses, but a lot of teams with either big names or recent top-10 finishes found themselves just outside the preseason poll.
• Tennessee, a darling of the SP+ projections (which will be updated later this week), fell 54 points short of a spot in the Top 25 but should have one of the best offenses in the country and might be favored in as many as 10 games this season.
• Texas, a darling of the FPI projections, fell 70 points short of the Top 25 but returns two of the best skill players in the country (running back Bijan Robinson and receiver Xavier Worthy) and boasts both experience on defense (we’ll say that experience on a bad defense is still a good thing in this instance) and, between Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card, upside at quarterback.
• Iowa spent six weeks in the top 10 last season and brings back a particularly Iowa-ish squad that features an experienced and exciting secondary, seasoned and potentially exciting lines and, yes, quarterback limitations. Its schedule features road trips to Ohio State, Purdue and Minnesota and visits from Michigan and Wisconsin, which might preclude a top-10 run. But let’s not pretend it would be incredibly surprising if they went 10-2 or so again.
• Penn State was up to fourth in the AP poll last season before quarterback Sean Clifford suffered an injury that briefly knocked him out of the lineup and severely limited his performance when he returned. If he stays healthy, and the defense continues to perform under a new defensive coordinator (Manny Diaz), the Nittany Lions could be an obvious rebound candidate.
• LSU won the national title less than three years ago and boasts top-10 talent from a recruiting perspective. With such upside, so many transfers and a new head coach (Brian Kelly), the Tigers could be capable of anything between about five and 11 wins this fall. And they’ve got enough talent that, if they were to win 10 or 11 games, we would all pretend we saw it coming beforehand.
Florida (sixth in 2019) … Minnesota (10th in 2019) … UCF (sixth in 2017) … Auburn (10th in 2017) … there are quite a few teams with pretty recent high-level success buried in the “Others receiving votes” category this year. Expect a couple of these teams to make impressive runs.
Three mid-majors will finish ranked
Be it 1999 Marshall, 2006 Boise State, 2015 Houston, 2017 UCF, or others, a team from outside the power-conference ranks can find a pretty lofty poll position with an out-of-nowhere run, even if College Football Playoff access pretty clearly requires multiyear success. On average, 1.1 teams from what we now call the Group of Five will finish in the Top 15, and 3.1 will finish ranked.
For the second straight season, three G5 teams (if we include BYU in that designation) earned a spot in the preseason poll after going a combined 35-6 last season: No. 23 Cincinnati, No. 24 Houston and No. 25 BYU. All three will be playing in the Big 12 next year, but they will carry the mid-major banner one last time, and it would not be a surprise if any of the three won double-digit games and made a run at a Top-15 finish.
Other candidates for a big 2021:
• Fresno State. The Bulldogs earned 32 points in the preseason poll, and my SP+ projections gave them an average win total of 9.6. If the change from former head coach Kalen DeBoer to former former head coach Jeff Tedford goes well, the Bulldogs could make a run at both a lofty win total and the Mountain West crown.
• UCF. Gus Malzahn’s first Knights team won six of its last seven games and earned 27 preseason poll points. Malzahn is combining an experienced returning roster with a hefty batch of transfers. He is attempting to aggressively raise the ceiling of the UCF roster as it prepares to also enter the Big 12, and that could reap dividends this fall.
• Pick your poison from Conference USA. UTSA is coming off of a brilliant, 12-win 2021 season, albeit one that featured a 6-0 record in one-score finishes. The Roadrunners could improve enough to offset close-game regression, but if they don’t — and voters evidently don’t expect them to, since they received zero preseason votes — then look out for either UAB or Western Kentucky to make a run despite offseason changes.
• The survivor of the Sun Belt East gauntlet. Appalachian State earned four preseason poll votes, but be it the Mountaineers, Marshall, Coastal Carolina or even Georgia State, the winner of the G5’s best division will boast some impressive wins and poll votes.