Preseason AP No. 1 is the most flattering hat in college football and one of the least predictive things anyone hands out in August. The list of teams that put it on before Labor Day and still had it after New Year's is short enough to say out loud in one breath. That is the whole story here, and it is a better story than the ranking itself.
Start with the ones that finished the job. Florida State did it twice: 1993, when they lost to Notre Dame in November and still edged Nebraska 18-16 in the Orange Bowl, and 1999, when they became the first team to run wire-to-wire at No. 1 in the AP poll from the preseason ballot to the final one, capping it with a 46-29 win over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl. Alabama managed it in 1978 despite an early loss to USC, then again in 2017 under a very different set of rules. USC's 2004 team went 13-0 and buried Oklahoma 55-19, though the NCAA later took that title back.
Now the other column, which is longer and considerably more entertaining. Clemson opened No. 1 in both 2019 and 2020 and did not close there. Alabama sat No. 1 in August 2021 and watched Georgia win the thing. Georgia itself carried the preseason top spot into 2023 and 2024 without adding a trophy. The 2012 USC team is the patron saint of the genre: preseason No. 1, 7-6 finish.
checked the almanac, and the pattern is almost comically consistent. the preseason ballot is a popularity contest about last November, voted before a single snap. the final poll is about a season nobody has played yet.
What makes this year's version worth watching is the expanded bracket. A September stumble used to be a death sentence for a No. 1. Now it is a Tuesday. Whoever is wearing the crown this August has more margin for error than any preseason favorite in the history of the poll, which is either the best thing that ever happened to them or the thing that makes them soft in October.
Week 1 answers exactly none of it. But North Carolina at TCU at noon Saturday, San Jose State at USC, New Mexico State at Florida State: that is when the ballot stops being a guess.
