The preseason AP Top 25 was released Monday, and I’m sad to report that the evil voters who take part in it denied us the opportunity to have a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup to open the season. While they followed the lead of the Coaches Poll and put Texas at No. 1, Ohio State checks in at No. 3, with their Big Ten rival, Penn State, finishing at No. 2.
Other than that, the poll wasn’t too dissimilar from what we’ve seen elsewhere, including our own CBS Sports 136. However, while the order of teams wasn’t shocking, there are some interesting tidbits to be gleaned from preseason expectations.
AP Top 25 poll: Texas makes history as preseason No. 1, Penn State is No. 2 in college football rankings
Will Backus
The Big Ten and SEC dominate
Just in case the size of the checks they’re cashing from television networks isn’t enough proof, the poll does an excellent job of showing you the gap (I’ll leave you to decide whether it’s real or perceived) between the sports’ two dominant leagues and everybody else.
Four of the top five teams in the poll hail from the Big Ten or SEC. The only interloper is Clemson at No. 4, and that’s no coincidence. Not only do the Tigers have an experienced team returning, but they’re the only program from outside the SEC or Big Ten to win a national title in the College Football Playoff era.
Taking it further, seven of the top 10 and 11 of the top 15 teams in the poll come from the Big Ten or SEC. Then, for good measure, there are five more thrown in at the bottom to give the leagues a total of 16 teams.
That’s right, the Big Ten and SEC have four more teams in the top 25 than there are playoff spots available to the country this season. Whether or not they use this as evidence that the playoff must expand to 16 is up in the air.
Parity?
There are dueling narratives at work here! While the poll is dominated by the Big Ten and SEC, suggesting parity remains a myth, dig a little deeper and you find evidence otherwise. The Texas Longhorns received the most first-place votes (25) and finished with 1,552 points (you get 25 for a first-place vote, 24 for second, and so on), but Penn State is hot on their cloven hooves. The Nittany Lions received 23 first-place votes and finished with 1,547 points.
Texas finished as low as sixth on two ballots, while Penn State was only that low on one. The difference between the two is basically the two first-place votes, and that Texas received two more second-place votes.
But the parity does not stop there.
Going back to last year’s preseason AP Top 25, three teams (Georgia, Ohio State and Oregon) received first-place votes, but the gap between No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Ohio State was 42 points. This season, six teams found themselves atop at least one ballot (Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia and Oregon). The gap between Texas at No. 1 and Oregon at No. 7 — No. 6 Notre Dame didn’t receive a first-place vote but finished ahead of Oregon anyway — is 316 points. Last year, Ole Miss finished 343 points behind No. 1 Georgia, and the Rebels were No. 6. No. 7 Notre Dame was 410 points back.
That means that not only were more teams receiving first-place votes this year, but there wasn’t a true consensus on No. 2 through No. 10. Perhaps more telling than the six teams appearing atop a ballot is that eight different teams were ranked No. 2 by at least one voter.
In other words, voters are confident about who the best teams in the country are, but other than that, they aren’t nearly as confident about which one will prove to be the best. In the era of an expanded playoff, that’s the dream. We enter a season where you can make a realistic argument that as many as 10 teams have a realistic shot at winning it all. The mileage on that realism varies, but it’s certainly a shift from most years.
Why is that happening? It’s a multitude of factors. One is that so many of the top programs are experiencing change at quarterback and other key spots. The other drivers of change are the transfer portal, which is keeping teams from hoarding depth the way they used to, and the lapse of COVID eligibility.
There just aren’t as many 24-year-old men available to plug into your roster as there have been the last five seasons!
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Nobody knows what to make of the Big 12
The poll is a perfect reflection of how the Big 12 is viewed. There are good teams in the league, but there aren’t any elite teams. No. 11 Arizona State is the highest-ranked team in the league. After the Sun Devils, we don’t see another Big 12 team until No. 17 Kansas State.
No. 22 Iowa State and No. 23 Texas Tech round out the four teams that finished in the poll, but Nos. 26, 27, and 28 are BYU, Utah and Baylor. So what happened here is the voters filled out their top-15, consisting of the Big Ten, SEC, Clemson, Miami, Notre Dame and the reigning Big 12 champs, then said, “all right, now let’s throw some Big 12 teams in there at the bottom.”
Four Big 12 teams made the poll, and nine received at least one vote. So those teams that were “thrown in there” varied, which made it difficult for anyone but Arizona State to climb into the top 20. This will change as the season goes on, because there are good teams in the Big 12. We just don’t know who they’ll be yet because the gap between the league’s best and worst isn’t as pronounced as it is in the other power leagues.
Boise State is still seen as the class of the non-Power leagues
Speaking of just throwing teams on there, Boise State is the only team from outside the Power Four conferences (unless you count Notre Dame, but you really shouldn’t) to appear in the poll, and it’s at No. 25. It’s no surprise that Boise State would be the Group of Six team ranked, nor would it have been a surprise if the Broncos hadn’t been ranked at all.
Yes, they made the playoffs last year, but they also lost Ashton Jeanty, which leads to some uncertainty.
What’s more interesting is that while the Broncos appeared on 42 of 64 ballots, reaching as high as No. 11, they were in the top 20 on 14 total ballots. Meanwhile, only eight other G6 programs received at least one vote, and those eight appeared on 30 ballots combined between them. Only Tulane (18) and UNLV (12) were included in somebody’s top 20. Much like the Big 12, that will change as the season goes on, but it’s a clear indicator of how voters feel about the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots in the sport.
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