Ohio State No. 1, Oregon No. 2 in Preseason AP Top 25: Big Ten Owns College Football
The Associated Press dropped its preseason Top 25 on Monday, and the Big Ten owns the top of the sport.
Ohio State opens the year at No. 1 with 40 first-place votes. Oregon follows at No. 2 with 14. It is the first time since 1961 that the same conference has held both top spots in the preseason poll. The last time was actually the Big Ten as well, when Iowa and Minnesota went 1-2 in the old days of two-way football.
Ryan Day’s Buckeyes get the top billing after finishing last season in the College Football Playoff. They lost some pieces to the NFL but return more starters than any of the other top-five teams, including receiver Jeremiah Smith, who is already being called the best receiver prospect in a decade. Ohio State is the deepest roster in the sport by a lot of measures.
Oregon at No. 2 is the story. Dan Lanning’s group is now in year four of the full-scale portal empire he built in Eugene, and this is the most talented team he has ever coached. The Ducks are stacked at every position, with the quarterback position being the only real question. Dante Moore has to be the guy, and the entire Big Ten title race probably comes down to whether he takes the leap.
Georgia lands at No. 3 in a year where Kirby Smart is basically starting over on defense. Notre Dame is No. 4 with six first-place votes. Texas rounds out the top five, followed by defending national champion Indiana at No. 6.
Indiana falling out of the top five is the mild upset. The Hoosiers went 16-0 last season and won the national title behind Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza, but Mendoza is gone and voters are skeptical that Curt Cignetti can rebuild the same magic in year two of the sequel. That is a reasonable stance until proven wrong.
Miami is at No. 7. The Hurricanes are the sleeper pick to make the playoff in Mario Cristobal’s fifth year, especially with the ACC in a rebuild mode. Texas A&M, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma round out the top 10.
The SEC has six teams in the top 12. The Big Ten has four. That gap has closed dramatically from where it was even three years ago, and it reflects how much money has poured into Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan, and Penn State from their conference’s TV deal.
The playoff race is going to be a bloodbath. There are probably 15 legitimate teams with the talent to reach the 12-team field, and only 12 spots. That means somebody in the top 15 is going to have a great regular season and still get left out because the résumés will be so tight.
Ohio State opening at No. 1 also carries some baggage. The Buckeyes have started ranked No. 1 eight previous times. They have won two national titles from that spot and lost the top ranking within a month more often than not. Preseason polls are a starting line, not a finish line.
Season kicks off in less than two weeks. Ohio State opens against Texas in Columbus on August 30. That is a top-five matchup in Week 1, and the winner immediately becomes the front-runner for everything.
Grab the popcorn early.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
