Today is a national holiday for college football fans, as the preseason AP Top 25 college football rankings are finally here. Do preseason rankings matter? Probably not! It's a futile exercise ranking teams on paper before they've ever touched the field, which is especially true in the transfer portal era of the sport. At the same time, we have to start somewhere with how we value these college football teams, contenders and pretenders alike, and this is the best model we have.
That, however, doesn't mean that the AP Top 25 voters get it right. There are always nits to pick, even in the middle of the season, but especially with the preseason rankings. That's where we come in, to highlight the teams that are ranked too high and ranked too low, and make the case for why they should be moved up or down. But first, let's take a look at the full top 25 rankings.
Preseason AP Top 25 college football rankings
- Ohio State Buckeyes
- Oregon Ducks
- Georgia Bulldogs
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish
- Texas Longhorns
- Indiana Hoosiers
- Miami Hurricanes
- Texas A&M Aggies
- Ole Miss Rebels
- Oklahoma Sooners
- LSU Tigers
- Texas Tech Red Raiders
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- BYU Cougars
- USC Trojans (tied for 14th)
- Michigan Wolverines
- Washington Huskies
- Penn State Nittany Lions
- SMU Mustangs
- Tennessee Volunteers
- Utah Utes
- Iowa Hawkeyes
- Houston Cougars
- Louisville Cardinals
- Missouri Tigers
3 teams ranked too high in the preseason AP Top 25
Notre Dame Fighting Irish (No. 4)
Notre Dame is a damn good college football team and most consider them a lock to make the College Football Playoff this season. CJ Carr returns at quarterback, which is a massive boon for the Fighting Irish, especially with the losses in the run game from a year ago. More importantly, though, this is one of the best defensive units in the country that Marcus Freeman has at his disposal.
At the same time, Notre Dame's position as a CFP lock, frankly, has more to do with their schedule for the 2026 season, which might be the softest of any team in the top 10. Yes, they have a much-anticipated rematch with Miami, but BYU and SMU are their only opponents ranked in the preseason AP Top 25, and both fall comfortably outside of the top 10. It's quite clearly not an SEC or Big Ten schedule for the independent blue-bloods.
The Fighting Irish absolutely deserve to be ranked as a top-10 team coming into the season. However, we shouldn't be rewarding this team for its schedule before they take the field. This is a team that missed the College Football Playoff last year and lost its two biggest offensive weapons to the NFL Draft in Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price. There are more questions than it feels like AP voters are admitting, which is why they should be a bit lower than the fourth-best team in the country.
Ole Miss Rebels (No. 9)
Considering that he took over as head coach for Lane Kiffin amid a ton of turmoil and still led Ole Miss to the CFP Semifinals, there's good reason to believe in Pete Golding as the new head coach in Oxford. Even with the majority of the Rebels staff from last season now in Baton Rouge, things feel oddly stable in the coaching ranks for this program. And there's good reason to believe that Ole Miss can at least compete for another CFP berth.
The problem, however, is that's anything but certain. Yes, Ole Miss returns two of the most exciting players in college football with quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy. My issue stems from what's left from last year around them. The defense, even with Golding still manning the controls, lost a ton of key contributors, and the offense has moving parts around their stars in the backfield.
All this is to say that the Rebels have a metric ton of questions that need to be answered this season. They could absolutely answer them and be a CFP lock with the star power they have leading the way. But banking on those questions being answered by making them a top-10 team in the country preseason feels like a bit of a stretch and overvaluation of this team.
Iowa Hawkeyes (No. 22)
Point blank, what are we doing here? Did AP voters get to the bottom of the rankings and just feel obligated to give Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes their customary spot in the No. 21-25 range of the preseason rankings? Because outside of that, I don't see how there's a logical explanation to have this iteration of Iowa as one of the 25 best teams in the country entering the year.
The Hawkeyes have obviously been the picture of consistency under Ferentz, no doubt. But there are clear signs that could pull back this year. Losing Mark Gronowski and now turning to either Jeremy Hecklinski or Hank Brown is a big drop-off at quarterback, and there aren't necessarily many skill-position players who look like individual needle-movers for this offense as well.
Even more worrisome is the fact that I'm not as confident in Phil Parker's defense as I've been in years past, especially with little to no returning production on the defensive line. If the Iowa defense has questions, the offense has rarely (if ever) been able to close that gap. Until we see the Hawkeyes prove there isn't a step back for the program this season, having them ranked in the preseason feels more like a career achievement award rather than an actual assessment of this roster.
3 teams ranked too low in the preseason AP Top 25
Texas Longhorns (No. 5)
Fully understanding that Arch Manning and, subsequently, the Texas Longhorns burned people last season while stumbling out of the gates, it's absolutely egregious for any reasonable AP voter to say that there are four better teams in the country than Texas if you just look at the roster. It's even crazier that, while Notre Dame and Indiana actually did receiver first-place votes, the Longhorns didn't fetch a single voter in that capacity.
Whether you want to admit it or not, the truth is that Arch is one of the best quarterbacks in college football, if not the best. He came on in the second half of last year and looked every bit the part of the 5-star stud he was promised to be. Now he has an offensive line that should be improved, a running back stable that's a big upgrade, and a receiving corps that's deeper and now led by one of the top receivers in the country, Cam Coleman.
And let's not forget about the defense. On paper, this could be the best defense in the country, and they have a stud coordinator joining them in Will Muschamp. If you're just looking on paper and removing the "we're back" of it all when it comes to Texas, this group has an argument as the legitimately best team in college football this season. The fact that they're No. 5 is just plain disingenuous.
Indiana Hoosiers (No. 6)
Look, at a certain point, we've got to start giving Curt Cignetti and Indiana the respect that they've earned. The Hoosiers have not made the College Football Playoff in back-to-back years and won an undefeated national championship last week, as well. Yes, they've lost Fernando Mendoza and some key contributors, but the general vibe out of Bloomington should be that this isn't a flash in the pan. It's something that's going to keep happening.
Indiana ended up at No. 6 because of the lack of respect from some of the voters. The Hoosiers actually garnered the third-most first-place votes (8), behind only Ohio State and Oregon, but still fell behind three other teams in the rankings because some other voters must have had them quite low on their ballots. That seems wildly incorrect given that they have another experienced Power Four quarterback in Josh Hoover with a potentially better group of skill position players, along with a defense that looks like it has the personnel to simply not miss a beat under Bryant Haines.
This isn't me saying that Indiana is going to win back-to-back national championships. Honestly, I'd be shocked if we see that again in the modern era of college football with the transfer portal and NIL causing such wholesale changes every offseason. Having said that, the Hoosiers deserve more respect as they stick to a now-proven model under Cignetti than this preseason ranking gives them.
SMU Mustangs (No. 19)
I'm not here to tell you that the ACC is underappreciated this season. Far from it. This is, for my money, the worst Power Four league in the country, and it'll be an abomination if the Miami Hurricanes don't win the conference for the first time this season. With that being said, though, their most daunting challenger is clearly the SMU Mustangs, and there are some real questions as to why this team is ranked below the likes of Penn State, Washington and even Michigan, if not others even higher in the rankings.
The biggest thing is the return of Kevin Jennings. In the transfer portal era, it's a rarity to see a quarterback of his caliber be a three-year starter for the same program, but he's now entering that year three with the Mustangs and has shown the goods to be able to make a difference every time he touches the field. Furthermore, though, Rhett Lashlee has used the portal to upgrade and supplement this roster around him.
SMU has made strides with this year's team to be a more stable and consistent unit than a year ago. With the consistency in the coaching staff and, more importantly, at quarterback, this should be a team that we call a steady commodity this season with a lot of promise for what they can accomplish. To have them below teams with real, viable questions about their quality seems like a misevaluation of what the Mustangs are.
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