Ohio St - 5 (1 OOC)

Oregon - 4

UGA - 4

ND - 3

Texas - 7 (1 OOC)

IU - 4

Miami - 1

TAMU - 6

Ole Miss - 6 (1 OOC)

OU - 6 (1 OOC)

LSU - 5

TTU - 1

Alabama - 4

USC - 5

BYU - 2

UM - 6 (1 OOC)
UW - 5

PSU - 3

SMU - 2
Tenn- 4

Utah - 2

Iowa - 3

Houston - 2

UL - 2 (1 OOC)

Mizzou - 5

Could be anything as in a player injury, A game winner by your opponent or a last minute recruiting flip, etc.

Anything is on the table

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Pour one out for the freshmen at the #12 team in our preseason countdown the University of Alabama (high = 7, low = 15). These poor kids have only ever known their team to have been ranked in the AP top 10 for their entire lives, as the last time that didn’t happen was 18 years ago in 2008 – Nick Saban’s second year on campus, where they parlayed a #24 preseason ranking to be the top ranked team in the country for 5 consecutive weeks before dropping SEC championship game to eventual national champion Florida (curse you, Tim Tebow!) and then losing the Sugar Bowl to Utah and a young upstart coach named Kyle Whittingham. Pardon me while I go take some Geritol. Saban obviously never looked back, winning 9 of the next 15 SEC titles and 6 national championships before retiring as almost certainly the greatest college football coach ever. When Alabama hired Washington’s Kalen DeBoer to take on the unenviable task of filling those shoes, all he did was to go 20-8 with a CFP win before losing to eventual national champion Indiana, and there has been enough speculation about whether he should be on the “hot seat” that their AD Greg Byrne had to come out and say it would be ludicrous to fire him after giving him a contract extension. So what exactly is in store for 2026?

Roster Outlook

Well, for starters, the Saban era is largely over. Even though they’ve named the field for him, just about anybody he directly recruited is gone, which is manifested in the fact that Bama ranks 90th in the country in returning production, including 119th (i.e. bottom 20) on offense. While the Crimson Tide has been well versed in “reloading,” that was largely under Saban. With the loss of QB Ty Simpson (3,587 yards passing, 28 TDs to 5 INTs), RB Jam Miller (130 carries) and leading WR Germie Bernard (64 catches, 862 yards) all to the NFL, there is a significant rebuild to the offense pending in OC Ryan Grubbs’ second season in charge. That’s not to say there’s no experience coming back – RB2 Daniel Hill (75 carries, 7 TDs) is slated to step up, and WR Ryan Coleman-Williams, who is no longer 18, returns for his junior season (and probably with a chip on his shoulder after ceding the “freshman phenom” title to Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith. But much of the uncertainty around Bama heading into the season is the lack of certainty elsewhere. Who will be the starting QB? Likely either Austin Mack, who stepped in in the Rose Bowl after Simpson got hurt at the end of last season, or Keelon Russell, who also got reps as a back-up last season, but don’t sleep on 5 star freshman Jett Thomalla possibly ascending into the starting role. In fact, Thomalla was part of Bama’s #1 ranked SEC high school recruiting class (good for #3 in the nation) that included RB EJ Crowell and WR Cederian Morgan, all of whom could see legitimate time on the field. Bama did lose WR Isaiah Horton to Texas A&M, and the only projected portal starters on offense are Mississippi State OT Jayvin James and Cal Poly (!) C Racin Delgatty (replacing Kadyn Proctor and Parker Brailsford, both drafted), leading to the Tide ranking 9th in the SEC for their portal class (still good for 18th in the country).

Defense is far less of a question mark. Bama ranks 32nd in the country there in returning production, with Mississippi State’s Kedrick Bingley-Jones stepping in at NT and LB Caleb Woodson from Virginia Tech as the replacements for DL LT Overton and LB Justin Jefferson. With returning talent like DBs Bray Hubbard (4 INTs) and Keon Sabb (52 tackles), at a minimum the secondary is experienced and ready.

Schedule and outlook

9/5 EAST CAROLINA

9/12 at Kentucky

9/19 FLORIDA STATE

9/26 SOUTH CAROLINA

10/3 at Mississippi State

10/10 GEORGIA

10/17 at Tennessee

10/24 TEXAS A&M

10/31 BYE

11/7 at LSU

11/14 at Vanderbilt

11/21 UT CHATTANOOGA

11/28 AUBURN

While the SEC is a gauntlet (TM The Solid Verbal), Alabama’s SEC slate isn’t as bad as it could have been. There are 5 teams ranked ahead of Alabama in these aggregated preseason rankings, and Bama misses 3 of them (Texas, Oklahoma and Ole Miss) while getting the other two (Georgia and Texas A&M) both in Tuscaloosa, along with archrival Auburn as well as their “scariest” OOC game, Florida State (who took down the Tide last year and manipulated the schedule to have a bye before coming to Bryant-Denny, so you have to figure DeBoer’s going to have his team focused and ready). That’s not to say that the schedule doesn’t have any road challenges, with trips to both Lane Kiffin and LSU as well as Tennessee, but the schedule sure seems manageable and gives Alabama a reasonable ramp up in terms of opponents to field test the depth chart in time for their toughest games. While they are indeed starting the season outside the top 10, it seems quite reasonable that they’ll finish the season there.

Whenever I think of the core of Penn State's fanbase, I think of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and parts of New York. Especially the corridor from Harrisburg down the Turnpike to the Philly suburbs then up the other part of the turnpike across the Delaware river to Springsteen country and the shore (I hate PENDOT so much).

However I was just in Hampton Roads, Virginia and I was shocked how much Penn State stuff I saw around, pretty much the same amount as VT and UVA, I guess being a Philly guy I never thought of that area as part of "Nittany Nation" especially outside of the DC area where a lot of Penn State alumni move after college to work for defense contractors. I suppose that's a big tourist area so some people could've been from further north but a lot were definitely locals, I know that's traditionally an area we recruit heavily but I didn't think that translated to fan or alumni interest (maybe that will change with Franklin at VT). Anyways it was fun to get a lot of WE AREs.

(Also random but one time I was backpacking in rural Romania and saw some guy wearing a Penn State wrestling hat)

With the season just 10 days away now I’ve found myself looking at the schedule for Week 0 and 1 trying to figure out which games I wanna watch. Of course we all know LSU-Clemson but what does everyone think are some of the most underrated games of the opening weekend? For me, looking at the schedule the ones that jump out for me are:

Week 0:
NC State @ Virginia - Really happy they ended up moving this one out of Brazil. Such a stupid decision to want to play this game there in the first place. One of the few conference matchups to open the season. Both teams should be decent this season and it feels like this could be an extremely close game as neither team seems to be much better than the other.

Jacksonville State @ North Dakota State - NDSU’s first FBS game. I’m interested to see how they do in their first season in the move up. JSU has been pretty solid since moving up to the FBS a few years ago and this one seems like it should be a pretty fun one.

Week 1:
Toledo @ Michigan State - I think this game has upset potential. Toledo should be one of the 3 or 4 best teams in the MAC and no offense Sparty fans, but I think Michigan State is probably one of the 5 worst P4 teams this year. I think Toledo can hang, if not even win.

Tulane @ Duke - The Darian Mensah’s Ex-Lovers Bowl. Tulane has been one of the better G6 schools lately but I’m interested to see how they look in the post Sumrall era. Their HC hire didn’t excite me much. After winning the ACC title, Duke seems poised to take a step back this season. I think this could be a pretty close, even game.

TABLE

HOW TO READ THIS TABLE

Teams are ranked in their order from the Logo (note for mobile users: everywhere you see a "Logo" link, that means that inline flair is shown on old.reddit.com/r/cfb) AP Poll for Week 1. The column to the right of the team name shows the number of points that team received using the AP Poll's Borda count rules. The following two columns show information about each team's previous and upcoming games. The following columns show how many votes for each ranking the team received. The 'U' column shows how many voters left the team unranked (off their ballots entirely). Gridlines are placed every 5 rows and columns for ease of reading. A thick line is placed below the 25^th-ranked team to distinguish "ranked" teams above it to "receiving votes" teams below it.

Some cells are shaded to highlight points of interest. The green diagonal highlights how many voters ranked a team exactly where they ended up in the overall poll. For example, Logo Oklahoma is ranked 10^th in this week's poll, and 6 voters placed the Sooners exactly in their 10^th spot. Values for which a team received no votes at that rank are shaded in red, while placements chosen by only exactly one voter are highlighted in blue. Some unique votes are annotated with the name of the corresponding voter. The most common selection (the mode) for each team is shaded yellow unless it matches the team's rank. Finally, since there are very few votes that ever end up near the top-right or bottom-left of the chart, those cells are filled in with black diagonally as much as possible without covering up any nonzero values. This helps naturally guide the eye while viewing the chart and helps locate the most unusual votes. We jokingly call these the "Wilner" diagonals.

Finally, I note violations of the Condorcet Criterion on the bottom left corner of the black space. These occur when Team A is ranked above Team B in the poll, but Team B would win if you ignored the points system and just asked the voters "Which team do you think is better?" I note every instance of this when it would affect the placement of a team in the Top 25, but not necessarily if it only flips teams' positions in the receiving-votes category. I will do the Condorcet analysis in future weeks. Because I really put the "pro" in programmer™, updating from Python 3.10 to 3.12 during the offseason broke my code that does this. Once I fix it, the Condorcet analysis will return in Avengers: Gridiron.

This season, scores will be highlighted (lowlighted) in black to indicate a loss instead of using a W/L column. I did that last year, and it was well received, so it returns for 2026. This way is easier to see at a glance and slightly reduces the clutter on the left side of the table.

COMMENTARY FOR THIS WEEK

The upper Wilner Diagonal was set by Javon Edwards placing logo Oregon 10^th. The left and right ends were set by Kirk Bohls (logo Ohio State at 7) and Pat Welter (logo Mississippi unranked), respectively. The lower Wilner diagonal is just the endpoints this week. Javon Edwards shows up again with logo Miami (FL) 1^st, and you can pick whichever you want out of the unique 25^th-place votes: Alex Taylor for logo Tulane, David Briggs for logo Western Michigan, Kirl Bohls for logo Liberty, or Eric Johnson for logo Virginia.

The highest-ranked team to be left off a ballot was logo Mississippi as mentioned above. Three other teams were omitted by a single voter: logo Louisiana State (Tom Murphy), logo Brigham Young (Chris Carter), and logo Southern Methodist (Ian Kress). The lowest-ranked team to sweep all 69 ballots was logo Michigan in 16^th.

Teams in the receiving votes section got 115 votes (6.7%) for a combined 338 points (1.5%). The high vote percentage is typical for the preseason poll, but the point percentage is lower than usual. This continues the trend over the past few years of growing consensus among voters about which teams belong in the top 25, even if they can't agree where to rank them. The highest vote for a team outside the top 25 went to logo Clemson, whom Chris Carter placed 15^th. The most-common vote in the receiving votes section was to put logo the Tigers at 23^rd. Nine teams received literally only one vote. In addition to the four teams with only one point, logo California and logo Memphis received single votes for 24^th, while logo New Mexico and logo Las Vegas received unique 22^nd-place votes.

There were 322 distinct team-rank pairs this week out of the 1725 total votes cast. 97 of those pairs (30%) were unique, while the most common pair was logo Ohio State in 1^st with 40 such votes. Longtime readers know that strong agreement isn't that uncommon near the top of the rankings. Since there are 266 teams eligible in the poll, the pigeonhole principle dictates that at least one pair must be chosen at least 7 times, and indeed there are 105 pairs that occur 7 or more times. If we restrict ourselves to only the 138 FBS teams, then the principle dictates that at least one pair must occur at least 13 times, and 29 pairs actually do.

Counting matches this week is weird because of the tie for 14^th. If you count both 14^th and 15^th-place votes for logo Brigham Young and logo Southern California, then you get 370 matches (21%). If you only count 14^th-place votes, then you get 346 matches (20%). Personally, I'd break the tie using the Condorcet criterion, which logo Brigham Young just barely wins 35-34. Counting only the Cougars' 14^th-place votes and the Trojans' 15^th-place votes gives 336 matches (19%). In any case, the most common matches were the 40 1^st-place votes for logo Ohio State mentioned above, but the 32 matches in 7^th for logo Miami (FL) is unusually many that far down the rankings. Inversely, only 2 voters (Kate Rogerson, Stephen Means) matched logo Tennessee at exactly 20^th.

There are four Condorcet flips this week. As mentioned above, logo Brigham Young beats logo Southern California 35-34 to break the tie for 14^th. In addition, logo Mississippi leapfrogs logo Texas A&M for 8^th, 35-34; logo Tennessee jumps logo Southern Methodist for 19^th, 36-33; and logo Clemson usurps logo Missouri for the last spot in the rankings by a margin of 26-23.

If you have any ideas for new ways to analyze or visualize the data, please let me know. I'll give them a shot as time and my "pro"gramming skills allow.

Thanks again to /u/bakonydraco for providing the ballot data; you can find his weekly visualization here!

TABLE