The Texas Longhorns are your preseason No. 1, according to the coaches poll. The annual preseason Top 25 is voted on by active head coaches from around the country. And the dirty little not-secret is that they're usually wrong.
Assigning a college football team a rank in the preseason can sometimes feel like throwing darts while blindfolded. That's especially true in the era of massive roster fluctuations via the transfer portal. It's usually obvious which teams are going to be competitive — that's why it's not terribly hard to predict what the AP voters will do. But it's near impossible to predict which teams are championship-ready.
Even so, every year the coaches take a stab at it. Here's what they came up with going into 2025:
Preseason coaches poll rankings
- Texas
- Ohio State
- Penn State
- Georgia
- Notre Dame
- Clemson
- Oregon
- Alabama
- LSU
- Miami
- Arizona State
- Illinois
- South Carolina
- Michigan
- Ole Miss
- SMU
- Florida
- Tennessee
- Indiana
- Kansas State
- Texas A&M
- Iowa State
- BYU
- Texas Tech
- Boise State
You'd think being ranked No. 1 was a good thing. Texas fans certainly hope that's the case. Unfortunately for them, being ranked No. 1 in the preseason is more often than not a death sentence for championship aspirations. In fact, in the last 15 years, only two preseason No. 1s have gone on to win the title: Alabama in 2017 and USC in 2004. The trend has held firm in the College Football Playoff era.
Preseason No. 1 performance in the College Football Playoff era
Year | Preseason No. 1 | Preseason No. 1's Finish (AP | Coaches) | Champion | Champion's Preseason Rank (AP | Coaches) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2024 | Georgia | 6 | 6 | Ohio State | 2 | 2 |
2023 | Georgia | 4 | 3 | Michigan | 2 | 2 |
2022 | Alabama | 5 | 5 | Georgia | 3 | 3 |
2021 | Alabama | 2 | 2 | Georgia | 5 | 5 |
2020 | Clemson | 3 | 3 | Alabama | 3 | 3 |
2019 | Clemson | 2 | 2 | LSU | 6 | 6 |
2018 | Alabama | 2 | 2 | Clemson | 2 | 2 |
2017 | Alabama | 1 | 1 | Alabama | 1 | 1 |
2016 | Alabama | 2 | 2 | Clemson | 2 | 2 |
2015 | Ohio State | 4 | 4 | Alabama | 3 | 3 |
2014 | Florida State | 5 | 6 | Ohio State | 5 | 6 |
As you can see, the preseason rankings are only predictive insofar as being ranked in the Top 6 puts you in a field of potential champions. So congratulations Texas, Ohio State, Penn State, Georgia, Notre Dame and Clemson! You're bona fide contenders. However, of those teams, the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions are the ones who should be celebrating their ranking.
In 11 seasons of the CFP, the No. 2 preseason teams has won the championship four times. The No. 3 ranked team has won it three times. No. 1 has one trophy. That is not a good track record for the team that was the talk of the town each August.
Correlation is not causation, of course. A preseason ranking doesn't determine the fate of a team. But a trend is a trend. This is mostly a sign of how preseason expectations can get inflated. With all due respect to Arch Manning and his obvious talent, it is more likely that he will be a replacement-level quarterback than an instant superstar who leads his team to the top of the mountain in his first year as a starter. No matter what, he's got quite the uphill climb ahead of him — and history isn't in his favor.
Granted, the same could be said of Ohio State's Julian Sayin (assuming he wins the starting job). No one knows how each young quarterback or even veteran team will react when faced with the challenges of a college football season.