Georgia holds the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press preseason college football top 25 poll for the second straight year as the superconference era begins with the SEC and Big Ten dominating the top 10 rankings.
The Bulldogs earned 46 first-place votes and 1,532 points in the Top 25 released Monday, and the SEC powerhouse finished the season comfortably ahead of No. 2 Ohio State (15 first-place votes and 1,490 points) in the Big Ten.
Oregon State, a new member of the Big Ten, finished third, receiving one first-place vote from a panel of 62 media members who cover college football. Texas State, which joined Georgia in the Southeastern Conference this season, finished fourth.
The Big Ten and SEC each have four teams in the top 10.
The conference realignment reduced the number of Power 5 teams to the Power 4, with the Pac-12 reduced 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 teams.
The entire move created an unprecedented preseason poll with only four conferences represented: the SEC in the lead with nine ranked teams, the Big Ten with six, the Big 12 with five and the ACC with four.
Alabama, in its first season without coach Nick Sabin since 2006, starts in fifth place. Sixth-seeded Ole Miss makes the Southeastern Conference half of the top six teams in the preseason.
Notre Dame is the highest-ranked team outside the SEC and Big Ten at No. 7.
Penn State is ranked eighth and Michigan is ranked ninth, both of which are among the top 10 teams in the Big Ten Conference. Florida State of the ACC is ranked 10th.
The defending national champion Wolverines said goodbye to coach Jim Harbaugh, quarterback J.J. McCarthy and 12 other players selected in the NFL Draft in April. All that attrition has led to Michigan’s lowest preseason ranking for a defending national champion since 2011, when Auburn was ranked No. 23 after Cam Newton’s departure.
Prior to that, the last time a defending champion finished worse than seventh in the preseason poll was when Colorado finished 13th in 1991.
Washington, which lost to Michigan in the College Football Playoff championship game, suffered an even bigger fall after losing its head coach (Kalen DeBoer, who replaced Sabin at Alabama), a star quarterback and a mountain of talent to the draft and transfer portal. The Huskies are the first team to reach the CFP and fall out of the rankings the following season.
Georgia began last season in first place, seeking a record third straight national championship. Coach Kirby Smart’s team held the top spot throughout the regular season, then failed to qualify for the four-team playoffs after losing the SEC Championship game to Alabama.
“We’re dealing with new challenges this year,” Smart said at SEC media days. “We’re not afraid for people to try to use that as motivation. I’ve never used last year’s failure as motivation, I’ve never used last year’s success as motivation, and we’re not going to do that this year. That’s not who we are. We want to reinvent ourselves to be the best we can be.”
There will be more room for error this season with the playoffs expanding from four teams to 12.
The Bulldogs have 42 wins and two ties over the past three seasons, and they’re bringing more power back. Quarterback Carson Beck leads the charge, and edge rusher Michael Williams is expected to be Georgia’s next defensive star.
Beck is a rare college football player these days, a star quarterback in his fifth season at the same school who waited three years to become a starter. He completed 72 percent of his passes last year, with 24 touchdowns and six interceptions.
“He’s a great guy for us and a great example of resilience in college football,” Smart said.
Repeating the No. 1 ranking in the preseason is a recent trend. Going back eight seasons, Alabama has had two separate streaks of finishing No. 1 in the preseason—three years (2016-18) and two years (2021-22). Clemson was ranked No. 1 in the 2019 and 2020 preseasons.
Georgia will try to become the 12th team since the Associated Press preseason poll began in 1950 to start at No. 1 and finish at No. 1. The last team was Alabama in 2017.
“Food ninja. Friendly thinker. Explorer. Entrepreneur. Zombie junkie.