BATON ROUGE, La. — Georgia is No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 preseason college football poll for the second straight year. The superconference era begins with the SEC and Big Ten dominating the top 10 rankings.
The Bulldogs received 46 first-place votes and 1,532 points in the Top 25 released Monday and the SEC powerhouse finished comfortably ahead of No. 2 Ohio State (15 first-place votes and 1,490 points) of the Big Ten.
Oregon, a new Big Ten member, is No. 3, receiving one first-place vote from the panel of 62 media members who cover college football. Texas, which joins Georgia in the Southeastern Conference this season, is fourth.
The Big Ten and SEC each have four teams in the top 10.
Conference realignment has reduced the Power Five to the Power Four, with the Pac-12 whittled to just two schools. The Big Ten now has 18 schools. The Atlantic Coast Conference has 17 football teams, and the SEC and Big 12 each have 16.
All the movement created an unprecedented preseason poll with just four conferences represented: The SEC leads with nine ranked teams, followed by the Big Ten with six, the Big 12 with five, and the ACC with four.
Alabama, in its first season without coach Nick Saban since 2006, starts No. 5. No. 6 Mississippi gives the SEC over half the top preseason top six.
Independent Notre Dame is the highest-ranked team from outside the SEC and Big Ten at No. 7.
No. 8 Penn State and No. 9 Michigan give the Big Ten four top-10 teams. Florida State from the ACC is No. 10.
The preseason AP Top 25 is out and some tidbits and facts about every team:
— No. 1 Georgia is atop the preseason rankings for the third time in school history (2008, 2023).
— No. 2 Ohio State extended its record streak of consecutive seasons appearing in the preseason poll to 36.
— No. 3 Oregon has its best preseason ranking since 2014 when it was also No. 3.
— No. 4 Texas’ preseason ranking is its best since 2009, when it was No. 2.
— No. 5 Alabama’s ranking is its lowest in the preseason since it was No. 5 in 2009, though the Crimson Tide did extend its record streak of appearing in the preseason top five to 16 years.
— No. 6 Ole Miss has its best preseason ranking since it was No. 5 in 1970, Archie Manning's final season as Rebels quarterback.
— No. 7 Notre Dame is ranked in the preseason top 10 for the fifth time in the last six seasons.
— No. 8 Penn State is in the preseason poll for the 50th time, eighth most in history behind Ohio State (71), Oklahoma (66), USC (63), Notre Dame (61), Alabama (58), Texas (57) and Michigan (53).
— No. 9 Michigan, where Sherrone Moore is the first Wolverines head coach to have a team ranked in the preseason poll in his debut season since Lloyd Carr in 1995 (No. 14).
— No. 10 Florida State has been ranked in the top 10 of 17 straight polls, the fourth-longest active streak behind Georgia (50), Michigan (44) and Ohio State (44).
— No. 11 Missouri has its best preseason ranking since starting No. 6 in 2008.
— No. 12 Utah is making its sixth straight appearance in the preseason poll. The Utes had only been ranked in the preseason twice (2009, ’04) in their history before 2019.
— No. 13 LSU has been left out of the preseason Top 25 just once (2022) since 2001.
— No. 14 Clemson has its worst preseason ranking since 2014 (No. 16) and first outside the top 10 since 2015 (No. 12).
— No. 15 Tennessee has two straight preseason top-15 rankings for the first time since 2003-04.
— No. 16 Oklahoma has appeared in 24 straight preseason rankings, but this is the first time during that streak the Sooners have started outside the top 10 in consecutive seasons.
— No. 17 Oklahoma State in two of the last three seasons (2021 and ’23) has started the season unranked and finished ranked. In between (2022), they started the season No. 12 and finished unranked.
— No. 18 Kansas State and No. 22 Kansas are both ranked in the preseason poll for just the second time. The last was 1996.
— No. 19 Miami has not started ranked and finished ranked in a season since 2017. This is the Hurricanes' fifth appearance in the preseason poll during that time.
— No. 20 Texas A&M has now appeared in six straight AP preseason polls, but the Aggies have only finished ranked once (2020) since 2019.
— No. 21 Arizona is ranked in the preseason for the first time since 2015.
— No. 22 Kansas is in the preseason poll for the first time since 2009 and only the seventh time in program history.
— No. 23 USC, where coach Lincoln Riley’s seven teams with the Trojans and Oklahoma have all started the season ranked. Last year’s was the first to finish unranked.
— No. 24 North Carolina State has its second preseason ranking in three seasons after just six appearances previously.
— No. 25 Iowa has appeared in five straight preseason polls, matching the best streak in program history (1957-61).
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