The college football preseason AP Top 25 poll has officially been released, and there are plenty of early season storylines to follow, still two weeks before any games have been played. Whether you support the idea of the preseason poll or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the poll exists, and it does carry weight and influence.
- Georgia (46)
- Ohio State (15)
- Oregon (1)
- Texas
- Alabama
- Ole Miss
- Notre Dame
- Penn State
- Michigan
- Florida State
- Missouri
- Utah
- LSU
- Clemson
- Tennessee
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Kansas State
- Miami
- Texas A&M
- Arizona
- Kansas
- USC
- North Carolina State
- Iowa
Here are the top three storylines.
1. Coaches Leaving Matters…Except if You’re Alabama
There were some big coaching changes this offseason, and the polls took notice. Arizona (dropped 10 spots), Michigan (dropped 8 spots), and Washington (dropped completely out) were the three teams that saw the biggest drops in their rankings from the final rankings of 2023 to the start of the 2024 season.
Historically, with a coaching change, there isn’t a drastic drop in talent since the players are still the same, however with the transfer portal allowing entire rosters to be gone and rebuilt that is no longer the case.
Sure, Alabama had Washington’s Kalen DeBoer take over, but there still was a ton of roster turnover where one could easily argue that more talent transferred out of the program than into it. So why wasn’t Alabama negatively affected? The only answer is the respect the Tide have gotten from their 15 years of dominance.
2. SEC! SEC!
If you are an SEC fan, today is a very good day. Four of the top six teams in the rankings are from the SEC and another five are in the Top 20. Yes, nine of the top 20 teams in the first rankings are in the AP Top 20.
Why is this important?
Like it or not, the SEC has mastered the non-conference scheduling format, and they could realistically enter SEC play with eight of these nine teams ranked in the Top 15. This is important because once SEC games start, many of them will feature Top 15 SEC vs Top 15 SEC games where the winner will get a marquee win, while the loser has a loss that won’t affect their rankings. They also schedule a late-season nonconference game against a low G5 school that can boost rankings while other teams are playing conference games and losing.
Sure, if they lose three or four Top 15 games, they will drop significantly, but with the SEC able to leverage so many high rankings, there is a real chance they could snatch three to four at-large playoff spots at the end of the season.
3. G5 is Absent From the AP Top 25
There isn’t a single G5 team ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time ever! There is only one team in the AP Top 30 (Boise State at 28) and five teams total in the top 40. The G5 has always only had a portion of the pie regarding the early season rankings, but this is far worse than we’ve ever seen. Here are the past four years of how many teams were ranked in the Top 25 and Top 40.
2023: 1 Team in the Top 25, 5 in the Top 40
2022: 3 Teams in Top 25, 6 in Top 40
2021: 3 Teams in 25, 10 in Top 40
2020: 2 Teams in the Top 25, 7 in the Top 40
Again, this isn’t to say that the G5 and P5 were ever on the same level, but look at years like 2021, when 25% of the Top 40 were G5 teams. So why is this happening?
This isn’t an exact science answer, but it combines NIL, the transfer portal, realignment, and media coverage. Before, a G5 team could build a strong culture and be dangerous after a few years (Boise State, Houston, and Cincinnati in recent years). Now, with NIL and the transfer portal, why would a promising G5 quarterback want to stay at the G5 level when they can transfer to a P4 program and get paid more?
Also, most of the G5 programs that used to be ranked in the AP Top 25 are now in P4 conferences. Cincinnati, UCF, BYU, Houston, and SMU have taken up many of those ranking spots over the past decade.
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