Who Are the 2026 Versions of 2025 Preseason College Football Teams Going to Be?

The first preseason coaches’ poll came out. We have numbers next to college football teams for the first time, even though not a single game has been played.

It’s beautiful. It’s nonsensical.

We love ranking things based on what we think they are now, what we think they will be at the end, what we trust in a sport so chaotic, and we usually end up looking like complete idiots by the end of the year. It is the most low-stakes and fun game of politics possible.

We’re going to backtrack and look at last year’s preseason AP poll, which was before any game was played, and try to project based on what we think we know about this year and write a script to see who could be a similar 2026 version of that now that we not only have schedules for games coming up, but we have numbers attributed. No, we’re not likely to get an Indiana Curt Cignetti story where a basketball school pulls off a miracle and runs the table in dominant 15-0 fashion. Still, we could squint a little at some of the other stories and see some parallels to this year.

They do, after all, say that history repeats itself.

2025 Texas Tech // Utah

Well, the new villains of college football started off the season last year ranked 23rd, but then went on a run in which they feasted in the Big 12 with a Jacob Rodriguez-led defense and competent quarterback play all the way to being 11-1, ranked 4th, and being the Big 12 Champion.

We could very easily see 21st-ranked Utah go down that same path. Morgan Scalley is going to have Dampier likely throwing the ball more in the new era now that Whittingham is gone, and they’ve got the benefit of playing the Holy War game at home.

2025 Boise State // Iowa

Boise State was the “sure, we lost the best running back in our school’s history, but we’re a big name of the G6 schools and should still have a number by our name” school that benefitted from the brand and the previous season. We stuck them with a 25 because we didn’t know what to do with them; they lost the opening week and finished unranked with an 8-4 record.

This kind of feels like we’re giving the same sort of nice treatment of the brand here to Kirk Ferentz’s defenses in a major conference. They’re 22nd and are going to start the year with a stretch of at Michigan, Ohio State, and at Washington. The same way we mark down the Boise blue as “deserving” of a preseason ranking, we bank on the Ferentz defense as needing to have a number.

2025 Texas A&M // Penn State

Last year’s A&M team led by Marcell Reed went from 19th to 7th with an 11-1 record and a College Football Playoff appearance. Aside from their loss to Texas, they avoided a tough SEC schedule and got a 1-point victory against Notre Dame as their signature win. Not that Elko, Reed, and the Aggie defense weren’t incredibly talented, but sometimes all it takes is the benefit of having an easy schedule to have some magic work in your favor.

Matt Campbell, in his first season at Penn State, could very well have that same situation in which the B1G schedule makers have had some stars align in their favor. While they start out 17th, they’ve got true road tests at Michigan and Washington, but they avoid Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon and will get USC at home. James Franklin wishes he could’ve had that draw.

2025 Texas // Ohio State

For those that forgot, last season Texas was preseason #1 and missed the playoff entirely because we crowned Arch Manning too early; they lost to Ohio State in Columbus early. They had a 9-3 record because they couldn’t overcome the embarrassment of a Florida loss before Arch finally put it together. 

Ohio State is your preseason #1 with Julian Sayin as the Heisman favorite and will now be going TO Texas, TO Indiana, TO USC, and will play Oregon after that. Texas was thought to be the SEC powerhouse last year, and the losses piled up to the point where they were on the outside looking in. The B1G is competitive enough that the Buckeyes are going to have to not have the Florida game on their resume to avoid the same path.

2025 Notre Dame // Georgia

Notre Dame last year was the subject of all controversy. Starting with a #6 record and finishing ranked 10th with a 10-2 record, they still were outside of the playoff looking in because their only 2 big games were at the beginning of the season and were losses to both Texas A&M and Miami, losing the head-to-head and not having a conference championship despite looking like they peaked at the right time later in the season. The Pop-Tarts Bowl boycott was in full effect!

Georgia starts off the coaches poll at 3rd because Kirby Smart is as consistent as a Fortune 500 company, and Gunner Stockton has put up a Stetson Bennett-level track record as the truck driving this trailer in the Georgia offense year after year that’s brought them a National Title. That being said, take a look at Georgia’s path, and it could end up in some more Notre Dame-level controversy solely because of how loaded the SEC is. They’ve got to go to both Tuscaloosa and Ole Miss, and if those losses end up keeping them out of the SEC Championship game and they don’t have head-to-head wins in those matchups, Kirby could do something far more diabolical than Marcus Freeman just boycotting a bowl game with a toaster in the trophy.

2025 Florida // Clemson

We gave Florida a ranking despite knowing how abysmal it was under Billy Napier and talked ourselves into DJ Lagway possibly saving his job. The 15th-ranked Gators went 4-8, and the fan base was so fed up that they parted ways with Napier, which was not surprising.

Dabo Swinney may have a lifetime contract at Clemson for what he did in bringing back championships with Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence. In the age of the portal and his reluctance to use it, there’s a restlessness in South Carolina where he and the service academies are the only ones not to adapt. He’s since used it 14 times this season, showing a little flexibility, but having them ranked as the 23rd team when we’re not even certain who the quarterback is going to be, they have LSU, Miami, and a swing game to Cal on their schedule feels like we’re just being generous to what the program was rather than what it is in an unpredictable ACC.

2025 Clemson // Oklahoma

Speaking of Clemson, Cade Klubnik and all of their returning production in what was a “known quantity” was a preseason National Champion pick by many last year and finished 7-5! We know a lot of what Oklahoma is already with 3rd in returning starter rate in the SEC and John Mateer returning after finishing the year hobbled (and subsequently putting on an absurd amount of muscle this offseason), but do you remember the dud of a College Football Playoff game they had against Alabama? If Mateer is going to give us another one of those in a schedule featuring at Michigan, at Georgia, the Red River Rivalry, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M, the 9 by their name this early means nothing.

2025 Ole Miss // Washington

The “who is the team rated really low that their coach could potentially jump for another job despite being very good” team? Jedd Fisch at Washington is here for a good time, not a long time. Every other sport not named basketball in Seattle is losing money from this B1G travel; we already saw DeBoer leave for a big-time job from a National Championship-contending Huskies team. He already criticized Demond Williams for having his “trade request denied.”

Jedd has salivated over the Florida job as an alum, and it may not be Florida, but even with a Huskies team that could throw some punches in the conference this year getting a lot of big games at home, we probably won’t get Marty Smith camping out his home for a decision like we did with Lane, but could we get QB coach JP Losman coaching a playoff game a la Pete Golding??