Preseason College Football Rankings 2016: Predicting the AP's Top 25
The Associated Press is set to release its preseason Top 25 on Sunday, bringing us ever closer to the start of the 2016 college football season. That will give us two preseason polls, following the release of the Amway Coaches Preseason Top 25 earlier this month, which provides a better sense of which teams are expected to be the top contenders in the country.
Of the two polls, the AP tends to earn more overall credit since it's voted on by 61 members of the national college football media, as opposed to the Amway poll, which is comprised of coaches' ballots. That doesn't make predicting how those pollsters will vote any easier, though the existence of the coaches' poll does provide a bit of a baseline.
We've projected how the entire poll will look, basing this off historical data as well as from coverage provided by national media members this offseason. Think we're way off in some areas? Let us know in the comments section.
No. 25 Miami (Florida)
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Few coaching moves got more buzz this offseason than Miami's hiring of head coach Mark Richt, a former Hurricanes quarterback who had spent the last 15 seasons at Georgia but was pulled out of the unemployment line only days after that tenure ended. Since then the general consensus has been that Richt might just be the thing Miami has been missing in its quest to return to college football's elite.
"With the work Richt has put in so far, wins are just around the corner in a wide-open ACC Coastal Division," Bleacher Report's Justin Ferguson wrote.
Will enough voters feel the same way, at least enough to get the Hurricanes ranked? Our guess is yes, but not by much. Since 2010, the No. 25 team has averaged 164.4 votes, which with 61 voters means getting ranked 23rd or 24th on every ballot. That isn't how it will work out, since many won't rank Miami but others will put it in the top 20 and the numbers will balance out.
No. 24 Florida
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Florida might be one of the most undervalued defending division champions in recent memory. The fact the Gators won an SEC division title makes this even more surprising, since that league tends to garner more national respect than any other.
But Florida didn't look like a Top 25 team at the end of last season, when its offense disappeared during a three-game losing streak in which it scored a combined 24 points. As much credit as head coach Jim McElwain received for winning 10 games in his first season, until he can do that again those results are going to be taken with a grain of salt.
Still, expect the Gators to squeak into the AP poll (and slightly ahead of their Amway spot, which is 25th).
No. 23 Texas A&M
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It's a make-or-break season for Texas A&M and coach Kevin Sumlin, who has managed to get off to a 5-0 start the last two years but ended with 8-5 records each time. That—combined with far too many off-the-field incidents—has damaged the reputations of the Aggies and Sumlin and left many to wonder if he can really right the ship.
This probably contributed to A&M not being in the Amway preseason rankings, which Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee considered the biggest snub of that poll. If enough others in the media feel the same, particularly among those who are 2016 AP voters, then the Aggies will land a ranking in this poll.
A&M was unranked to start last season but jumped to 16th after beating Arizona State in its opener. A win against UCLA on Sept. 3 figures to provide fuel for a similar leap, whether it be from outside the Top 25 or near its bottom remains to be determined.
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No. 22 Louisville
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Head coach Bobby Petrino's first stint at Louisville, from 2003-06, featured the school's two best preseason rankings. The Cardinals were sixth to start both 2004 and 2006, and since then they've never been better than 13th and haven't gotten higher than 20th at any point since Petrino returned in 2014.
Had last season lasted a few more weeks, that would have been different, though, because Louisville was playing as well as any team in the country down the stretch. That was partly due to the emergence of freshman quarterback Lamar Jackson, who figures to be a breakout star this fall, and he's why the Cardinals are being included in the conversation with Clemson and Florida State for ACC supremacy.
Louisville gets those foes during the first half of the schedule, so we'll know early on whether it's deserving of this inclusion. For now, a preseason ranking is all the Cardinals have actually earned.
No. 21 Oklahoma State
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Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy has spent a surprising amount of time this offseason at the forefront of the debate over what constitutes a mullet. These aren't the kind of things a coach is normally concerned with when his team enters 2016 on a three-game losing streak, one that followed a 10-0 start to the season, but that's how wacky the months without football can get.
The Cowboys are likely to be left off quite a few AP ballots but still garner enough votes to make the Top 25, which has only happened seven other times in the program's history. Four of those have been with Gundy as coach—most recently in 2013—so if he wants to talk about hairstyles he's allowed.
No. 20 Baylor
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Baylor's talent is indicative of a Top 10 team, which is where it was ranked by several national media members this offseason. But many of those rankings came out before the Bears' offseason devolved into chaos in the wake of a sexual assault scandal that led to Art Briles' firing.
Since then the Bears' perception has changed dramatically, and so too has their projections for 2016. The Amway voters put them 21st, eight spots below their final 2015 ranking, and the AP voters are apt to do something similar.
Baylor is capable of beating everyone on its schedule, but because of so much uncertainty surrounding the team and its interim coach, Jim Grobe, the safer bet is to start the Bears low and see if they can rise.
No. 19 USC
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Nothing is ever simple with USC, and this extends to its annual placement in the Associated Press preseason poll.
The Trojans have been the preseason No. 1 team four times since 2004, but the last two times came after not being first at the end of the previous season, including in 2012 when they just edged out defending national champion Alabama. That USC squad finished outside the rankings, as did the 2015 version that began eighth and won the Pac-12's South Division along the way.
But it also fired its coach midway through the season and lost eight games, including the last two after promoting interim coach Clay Helton to the full-time job.
USC has a history of unpredictability but also amazing talent, which is why it will still end up ranked in the preseason for the 15th straight year.
No. 18 North Carolina
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North Carolina's 11-game win streak during last season was only exceeded by the teams that played for the national championship. Had a questionable offsides call not gone against the Tar Heels in the ACC final, they might have been in the playoffs instead of finalist Clemson, and certainly they wouldn't have gone into the offseason having just given up the most rushing yards (645) ever in a bowl game.
But that's the past and UNC will want to focus on the future, though it can't expect all AP voters to do the same. The Tar Heels are favored to win the Coastal Division again, but that probably won't be worthy of the school's first Top 15 preseason ranking since 1998 in the eyes of voters.
Rest assured, though: Carolina will be ranked to start a second consecutive season for the first time since 2009-10.
No. 17 Washington
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By and large, most of the teams that end up in the preseason rankings were also in the final poll of the previous season. They're moved around a bit, but a high percentage of the same names appear on both lists every time.
Nineteen of the 25 schools in the 2015 preseason poll were in the final 2014 rankings, down from 20 that were in both the final 2013 and first 2014 polls. We're projecting 20 similarities, with Washington in line to be the highest-rated of the newcomers.
The Huskies were 7-6 last season but were impressive in their final three games, doing so with a young lineup. That group now gets viewed as more experienced and thus deserving of greater respect (i.e., rankings). While coach Chris Petersen has equated this hype to Pokemon Go, there's always a team like this that uses a strong finish to the previous season to leap into the preseason poll.
No. 16 Iowa
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What to do with Iowa…
How will AP voters treat a team that seemingly came out of nowhere last season to go 12-0, win its division and nearly claim the Big Ten title then go to its first Rose Bowl in 25 years only to be blown out by Stanford? Is that result going to be treated like an outlier, similar to the 2009 Hawkeyes that went 11-2 but dipped to 8-5 a year later and were under .500 within three seasons?
Or might head coach Kirk Ferentz—who is tied with Oklahoma's Bob Stoops for the longest active tenure at an FBS school, on the job since 1999—be just starting out on a second wind of sustained success after mostly middling results from 2005-14?
Our best guess is it's going to be a mixture of both, resulting in a middle-of-the-pack ranking like Iowa's No. 15 spot in the Amway poll. The coaches poll doesn't reveal individual ballots but the AP does, and after the preseason rankings are released, it wouldn't be surprising to see Iowa be ranked 10th by as many voters as ones who leave them out altogether.
No. 15 Georgia
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The constant turnover in head coaches in college football makes it so almost every preseason poll ends up featuring at least one school that's under new leadership, though it's usually because the previous coach either retired or left for another job, sometimes in the NFL. When Gary Andersen surprisingly left Wisconsin for Oregon State after the 2014 season, he left Paul Chryst with a pretty good team, one that began last season at No. 20, and after Oregon's Chip Kelly went to the NFL the 2013 Ducks opened at third under former offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich.
Georgia is a different animal, since Mark Richt was effectively fired—though it was characterized as a mutual decision—despite having a 9-3 record and 145 wins in 15 seasons. In comes Kirby Smart, a first-year coach but one who as Alabama's defensive coordinator since 2007 was part of the four national titles, making him very different than most coaches entering their first season in charge.
With that in mind, the Bulldogs' preseason ranking will probably be their lowest since 2011 (19th) but still better than you'd expect from a team that fired its coach. Nebraska did the same to perennial nine-win coach Bo Pelini after the 2014 season but wasn't ranked to start last year under successor Mike Riley, despite him having a wealth of head-coaching experience.
No. 14 TCU
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The mark of whether or not a program has "arrived" isn't based on how high it's ranked when coming into a season with a loaded team. Instead it's what voters think when the squad isn't as deep or proven, and thus projections are more fluid.
Consider TCU entering the arrival phase of the long journey that coach Gary Patterson has taken it on during his 17-year tenure. When he took over in 2000, the Horned Frogs were in the Western Athletic Conference and later spent time in Conference USA and the Mountain West before joining the Big 12 in 2012.
Their breakout season was in 2014, going 12-1 and finishing third overall, which led to a No. 2 preseason ranking last August thanks to a stacked lineup. The roster Patterson has to work with for 2016 isn't as well-regarded, but because of what he's been able to accomplish in Fort Worth, Texas, that's not going to result in too much of a slide from TCU's final No. 7 rank in January.
No. 13 Michigan State
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Michigan State has finished with a Top 10 ranking in three straight seasons, its longest streak since the 1950s. The Spartans aren't likely to match that number of consecutive preseason Top 10 spots, but considering they haven't begun three seasons in a row in the Associated Press poll in more than 50 years, the exact placement isn't as important.
Head coach Mark Dantonio has established MSU as a power program, something it's only been considered in small bursts in the past. This perception change is still a work in progress, though, as despite having won two of the last three Big Ten titles and 11 or more games in five of six seasons, the Spartans aren't going to be better than the third-best team in its league in terms of preseason ranking.
No bother, Dantonio and the Spartans will say. It's how you finish that matters most, along with who comes out victorious in those head-to-head battles. It's MSU that did so against both Michigan and Ohio State in 2015, and now those teams come to East Lansing this season.
No. 12 Ole Miss
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Ole Miss' program is on the rise, but it's placement on the national stage is at a crossroads. Head coach Hugh Freeze has gotten the Rebels to win more each year since he arrived, getting to their first Sugar Bowl in 46 years this past season, but run-ins with the NCAA threaten to jeopardize everything.
For now it's just a perception issue, which combined with the loss of several key players from 2015 is what will keep Ole Miss from earning its first preseason Top-10 ranking since since 2009. Winning the opener against Florida State would quickly fix that, though ultimately it will be SEC performance that dictates the final ranking.
With quarterback Chad Kelly back for another season and some strong recruiting classes to pull from, the Rebels aren't going to slip much. They just aren't going to warrant the kind of hype that other teams in a similar situation—save for the NCAA involvement—have gotten of late.
No. 11 Houston
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With few exceptions, AP voters take great pride in being a part of the national poll and do their best to make their rankings be as objective and well-informed as possible. Included in that effort is trying to identify “off the radar” teams who deserve recognition, which usually means having to figure out which school outside the Power Five should sit somewhere between 20th and 25th on their ballot.
Houston has made any impetus to fill a non-power “quota” a lot easier. But in serving as a lock for pretty much every preseason ballot, based on the Tigers' 13-1 performance in 2015, they've created the new dilemma of just how high to rank this time around.
The Cougars finished eighth, their best final ranking since 1979, and are assured of their best preseason spot since being 12th to start 1991. If they sneak into the Top 10 it will be for the first time since 1980, and many voters may opt to do this to ensure Houston's first game (against Oklahoma) is a battle of Top 10 teams.
No. 10 Tennessee
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Tennessee hasn't been ranked in the Top 10 to start a season since 2003 and hasn't finished that high since 2001, but it might feel like the Volunteers are all anyone has talked about this offseason. A six-game win streak to end last year helps with that hype, as does being part of the most covered conference in the country.
Some critics will say this is an annual occurrence, that the Vols get built up as a contender when no games are being played yet when the actual season begins the results prove who they really are. But as Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee wrote—and which he's pointed out numerous times on Twitter—this isn't really the case.
"For the first time since 2005, Tennessee was picked to win the SEC East at media days in July by the assembled members of the media, and it was picked higher than fourth in the struggling division for just the second time since 2010 (the Vols were picked second last year)," Sallee wrote.
Regardless of past perception, expect the Vols to be highly ranked at the outset. That spot in the preseason poll won't matter nearly as much as where they sit after opening the season with seven consecutive games against teams that went bowling in 2015.
No. 9 Stanford
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The Pac-12 was the power conference that didn't send a team to the playoffs in 2015 due to not having a team with fewer than two losses. Stanford won the league last year and is projected to do so again this fall, but based on where the Cardinal figure to start in the polls, it looks like history is going to repeat for the Pac-12.
The Cardinal return arguably the best all-around player in the country in junior Christian McCaffrey, who set the FBS single-season all-purpose yardage mark while being the team's top rusher, receiver and return man. He also had a veteran quarterback and an experienced defense around him, things that aren't the case this time around, which might cause McCaffrey to have to do even more for Stanford to be successful.
David Shaw has won at least 11 games in four of his five seasons as coach, so a less experienced team isn't likely to hold as much weight with voters. Those on the East Coast know they'll have to put some West Coast teams on their ballot, and Stanford has the best name recognition right now.
No. 8 Notre Dame
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It's been 10 years since Notre Dame had a preseason Top 10 ranking, and it was a good one. The Fighting Irish started second that season, the second under head coach Charlie Weis, and while they went 10-3, they lost their final two games including the regular-season finale at No. 2 USC that might have launched them into the BCS title discussion had they won.
Weis' ensuing teams continued to get worse, and he was eventually replaced by Brian Kelly. Kelly also had relatively early success, getting Notre Dame into the BCS final after the 2012 season, but there hasn't been the drop-off that has plagued every other Irish coach since Lou Holtz left. Expect voters to reward this consistency with their best preseason spot in a decade, though still on the edge of the title discussion because of uncertainty about the quarterback position and the lack of returning starters.
"Notre Dame figures to be high on nearly every AP voter’s ballot, as in the past decade only once have the Irish finished higher than their next season’s preseason AP ranking," college football expert Phil Steele wrote.
Notre Dame ended 2015 at No. 11, so expect something higher than that for its first 2016 ranking.
No. 7 LSU
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Are LSU and head coach Les Miles bulletproof when it comes to the impact of past performances on future poll placement? They just might be, since for the second year in a row the Tigers are set to begin much higher than they finished the previous season.
The 2015 team was ranked 13th in the preseason, despite being unranked to end the 2014 season, because the talent on the roster was good enough to give LSU the benefit of the doubt. And while that squad rose to fourth in the AP poll (and more importantly, No. 1 in the playoff rankings) a late-season slide ended any shot at a national championship and put LSU 16th in the final AP poll.
And here we are again, with basically the same team as the Tigers had a year ago. This ranking figures to be as much the product of returning talent—most notably running back Leonard Fournette—but also because of how few players they didn't lose. Normally LSU is among the most affected by early NFL draft departures, but that wasn't the case this time, giving Miles an extremely experienced team and one that should be more capable of meeting the normally lofty goals.
No. 6 Michigan
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Among the few surprises from the Amway coaches poll was where Michigan ended up, which was eighth. Based on the amount of exposure and publicity coach Jim Harbaugh had this offseason, a Top Five spot seemed almost a certainty and the Wolverines might have landed a first-place vote or two.
Maybe the coaches who vote in that poll weren't as wowed by the Harbaugh media tour, though it figures to have a better effect on media voters. Thus, we're putting Michigan a few spots higher in the AP poll than its Amway ranking, though realistically anywhere from fourth to ninth seems possible.
There are plenty of question marks associated with Harbaugh's second team, such as who will be quarterback and how much of an impact will Jabrill Peppers will have playing yet another new position on defense. But that uncertainty is far less than at this time a year ago, when we had no idea what the Wolverines were going to look like.
No. 5 Florida State
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Florida State more or less met expectations in 2015, starting the year 10th in the preseason poll and finishing 14th, though not appearing in the ACC title game seemed odd since the Seminoles had become such a mainstay in that contest. It's a testament to what head coach Jimbo Fisher has done in Tallahassee that FSU was projected to have a "down" year last fall, but its version of down is much better than most schools.
But now the 'Noles are back, at least based on what national media experts are saying. They sit in the top five of several preseason rankings and are fourth in the Amway coaches poll, though all of those were compiled before news came out this past weekend that senior quarterback Sean Maguire needs foot surgery that will keep him out four weeks. That puts him out for at least the season opener Sept. 5 against Ole Miss and means redshirt freshman Deondre Francois figures to be the starter.
That might impact a few voters, but not many. Francois is well-regarded, and FSU has a history of strong play from inexperienced QBs—remember Jameis Winston, who led the team to a national title as a redshirt freshman in 2013?—but also won't be completely dependent on him. The 'Noles also have one of the best rushers in the country in Dalvin Cook.
No. 4 Ohio State
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Since preseason polls are basically comprised of a whole lot of guesswork, so much of how they play out is based off teams' 2015 records (and finishes) and the amount of starters who are set to return. The better each of these factors are considered, the higher a team tends to sit in the first poll of the following season.
There are always exceptions, though, and Ohio State falls into that category. With only six starters back from last year's 12-1 team, a ridiculously low number due to a massive number of Buckeyes turning pro early, in most cases this should lead to a team starting much further down in the preseason poll. Sort of a wait-and-see approach, if you will.
But with Ohio State the voters are apt to base their placement on more than just data from 2015 and 2016; they'll also look to earlier seasons since the Buckeyes' roster makeup is very similar to the 2014 squad that ended up winning the national title.
No. 3 Oklahoma
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Find a team that manages to exceed low expectations and fail to live up to high ones as much as Oklahoma and you'll discover a program that has equally frustrated fans. The Sooners won the Big 12 and made the playoffs last season after opening the year at No. 19, the second time in the last three seasons they've ended as a Top 10 squad after starting it much lower.
Contrast that with 2014, when Oklahoma was the preseason No. 4 yet wasn't in the final poll, or in 2009, 2011 and 2012 when it opened in the Top Four each time yet finished no better than 15th.
These preseason rankings have been directly related to the amount of returning talent Oklahoma has coming back each year, as well as how it finished. The latter shouldn't impact voting as much as the former but it tends to do so, yet for 2016 a sure-to-be high preseason ranking is going to be more a product of quarterback Baker Mayfield and much of his offensive teammates on board for another season.
No. 2 Clemson
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A few plays here and there—possibly involving better coverage of the opponent's tight end or some better special teams play—and Clemson might have won the national title and would be looking at a chance to repeat. Instead, the Tigers came up short against Alabama, and they'll likely find themselves behind the Crimson Tide in the preseason poll.
Making it back to the championship game a year after losing in it has almost been harder to accomplish than winning consecutive titles. Since the BCS era began in 1998, only three schools have appeared in a final after losing it the previous season, most recently in 2006-07 when Ohio State did it. The Buckeyes lost both of those games, though, as did Oklahoma after the 2003 and 2004 seasons, while Florida State claimed the 1999 national title after losing to Tennessee the year before.
Clemson's hopes lie in how its revamped defense fares this fall, though it should be able to get by in most games solely on the play of its explosive offense. Nearly everyone who contributed to last season's attack is back, most notably junior quarterback Deshaun Watson.
No. 1 Alabama
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You win the national title, you begin the following season atop the poll. This isn't a guarantee, but it's pretty darn close based on how recent defending national champions have fared in preseason Associated Press polls.
Alabama figures to be the fourth consecutive defending champ to start at No. 1, following Ohio State (2015), Florida State (2014) and Alabama (2013). The Crimson Tide were also the last titlist to not get the top spot for the following season in 2012, when USC ended up No. 1 but slipped to second behind 'Bama a week later.
Uncertainty at quarterback shouldn't concern most voters, not with the way offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin has previously molded unproven passers, though the same situation regarding running back might. Alabama got 55 of 64 first-place votes in the coaches' preseason poll, and a similar ratio could be in store from AP voters.
All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports, unless otherwise noted. All statistics provided by CFBStats, unless otherwise noted. Historical poll data courtesy of College Poll Archive, unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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