AP Poll 2026: College Football Top 25 Rankings, Explained
Update log (3)
- — Correction: Louisiana was listed here among the teams receiving votes, on four points. AP's own poll page does not carry it, on a second reading two days later — the entry came from two secondary write-ups and has been removed. Everything else on AP's page is unchanged: the same 25 in the same order, every team at 0-0, and the same others-receiving-votes list. This preseason poll is still the current one, and will be until the season starts: Week 0 is Saturday 29 August, Week 1 runs from Thursday 3 to Monday 7 September, and AP publishes on Sundays.
- — Correction to the release cadence stated in the note above: the next AP Top 25 is not a Sunday poll. AP's own poll page says 'Fan Poll voting starts Sept. 1. Results will be released Sept. 8 at 2 p.m. ET along with the AP Top 25' — that is a Tuesday, the day after Week 1 closes on Labor Day, and no poll is scheduled in between. So the preseason ballot below stands through Week 0 and Week 1 alike. On a re-read on 26 August, the week selector on AP's page still offers 'Preseason' and nothing else.
- — The preseason poll has been replaced, exactly as the note above said it would be. This page now carries the Week 2 AP Top 25, released 8 September and covering games through 7 September, with the preseason ballot kept alongside it as the comparison rather than deleted — the movement is the story. 'Preseason' has been dropped from the title because it is no longer what the page contains. Every rank, record, points total and first-place vote count was re-read from NCAA.com's AP table and independently confirmed against ESPN, which publishes both polls; the two agree to the point. The Coaches Poll section was rebuilt from the current AFCA ballot rather than the 4 August preseason one, and the conference counts were recomputed from the new 25.
AP’s own poll page schedules the next AP Top 25 for Sunday 13 September 2026 at 2 p.m. ET, with Fan Poll voting closing 10 September at 7 p.m. That release supersedes the Week 2 ballot below. From here the poll is weekly, so this page needs re-reading every Sunday afternoon.
Everything else on the page is unaffected; the figures below still say when they were read.
- This is the Week 2 AP Top 25, released 8 September 2026 and covering games through 7 September. It replaced the preseason poll this page previously carried.
- Ohio State stays No. 1 and strengthened its grip, from 40 of 69 first-place votes in the preseason to 46.
- Oregon won its opener and still fell from 2nd to 6th — the largest drop by any team that did not lose.
- Seven teams received first-place votes, up from five. Georgia is second on points with none of them; Indiana is fifth with eight.
- Preseason No. 16 Michigan is out of the Top 25 altogether, now third among teams receiving votes. Virginia came in at 25.
- Louisville is 0-1 and still ranked 24th, which is what a preseason ranking buys you for one week.
- AP and the coaches now agree exactly on 18 of the 23 teams both rank, and no shared team differs by more than two places.
Ohio State is still the AP’s No. 1 team after one week, and its grip tightened: 46 of 69 first-place votes, up from 40 in the preseason.
The movement is further down. Oregon won its opening game and fell from second to sixth — the biggest drop by any team that did not lose — and preseason No. 16 Michigan is out of the Top 25 altogether.
The full AP Top 25
Released Tuesday 8 September 2026, covering games through Sunday 7 September. First-place votes in brackets; “Pre” is the previous ranking.
| # | Team | Rec | Points | Pre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio State (46) | 1-0 | 1,684 | 1 |
| 2 | Georgia | 1-0 | 1,532 | 3 |
| 3 | Notre Dame (4) | 1-0 | 1,512 | 4 |
| 4 | Texas (2) | 1-0 | 1,462 | 5 |
| 5 | Indiana (8) | 1-0 | 1,428 | 6 |
| 6 | Oregon (3) | 1-0 | 1,422 | 2 |
| 7 | Miami (FL) (1) | 1-0 | 1,405 | 7 |
| 8 | LSU (5) | 1-0 | 1,315 | 11 |
| 9 | Ole Miss | 1-0 | 1,154 | 9 |
| 10 | Texas A&M | 1-0 | 1,079 | 8 |
| 11 | Oklahoma | 1-0 | 1,039 | 10 |
| 12 | Alabama | 1-0 | 910 | 13 |
| 13 | Texas Tech | 1-0 | 900 | 12 |
| 14 | Southern Cal | 2-0 | 861 | T14 |
| 15 | BYU | 1-0 | 840 | T14 |
| 16 | Penn State | 1-0 | 621 | 18 |
| 17 | SMU | 1-0 | 501 | 19 |
| 18 | Tennessee | 1-0 | 491 | 20 |
| 19 | Washington | 1-0 | 489 | 17 |
| 20 | Utah | 1-0 | 381 | 21 |
| 21 | Iowa | 1-0 | 369 | 22 |
| 22 | Houston | 1-0 | 214 | 23 |
| 23 | Missouri | 1-0 | 182 | 25 |
| 24 | Louisville | 0-1 | 163 | 24 |
| 25 | Virginia | 1-0 | 89 | RV |
Three things in that table are worth a second look.
Southern Cal has played twice while every other ranked team has played once, so its 2-0 is not a like-for-like comparison. The preseason tie at 14th between BYU and Southern Cal has broken, by 21 points.
Louisville lost and is still ranked 24th. That is what a preseason ranking buys you: one week of the benefit of the doubt. It is the only ranked team with a loss.
Virginia is the only new entry, arriving at 25th from the others-receiving-votes list.
Who actually got first-place votes?
Seven teams now, up from five — and the list still does not follow the rankings.
| Team | Rank | First-place votes | Preseason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio State | 1 | 46 | 40 |
| Indiana | 5 | 8 | 8 |
| LSU | 8 | 5 | 0 |
| Notre Dame | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| Oregon | 6 | 3 | 14 |
| Texas | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Miami (FL) | 7 | 1 | 1 |
Oregon is where the week actually happened. It went from 14 first-place votes to 3 — losing eleven of them — while winning its game. Voters did not just move it down the order; a large bloc of them stopped thinking it was the best team in the country.
Georgia is second and has none. It gained a place on points without a single voter putting it top, which is the same pattern it showed in the preseason.
LSU gained five first-place votes from nothing and jumped 11th to 8th, the largest rise in the top ten.
Indiana is still the poll’s genuine disagreement. Eight voters have it first; the rest have it low enough to leave it fifth. That is a split opinion rather than a consensus, and the rank alone does not tell you so.
The votes sum to 69, which is the number of voters. That is the check that says nobody has been left out of the list.
AP vs the Coaches Poll
Both polls now cover the same games, and they have converged. Of the 23 teams both rank, 18 sit at identical positions and only five differ, none by more than two places.
| AP | Coaches (AFCA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers games through | 7 Sep | 7 Sep |
| No. 1 votes | Ohio State 46 of 69 | Ohio State 50 of 74 |
| Only in this poll | Louisville 24, Virginia 25 | Michigan 24, Florida 25 |
The whole roster disagreement is the last two places. AP keeps 0-1 Louisville and promotes Virginia; the coaches drop both and keep Michigan at 24 with Florida at 25. So AP was harder on Michigan than the coaches were, and softer on Louisville.
The five shared teams that differ:
| Team | AP | Coaches |
|---|---|---|
| Notre Dame | 3 | 4 |
| Texas | 4 | 3 |
| Ole Miss | 9 | 11 |
| Texas A&M | 10 | 9 |
| Oklahoma | 11 | 10 |
The coaches disagree with themselves less than AP does. They gave Indiana 11 first-place votes while ranking it fifth, and Georgia seven while ranking it second — Georgia is shut out entirely on the AP ballot. Their votes come to 74, implying a 74-strong panel, though neither source publishes that figure, so treat it as arithmetic rather than a stated number.
Which conferences are represented?
Two leagues hold 16 of the 25 places, one fewer than in the preseason.
| Conference | Teams | Preseason |
|---|---|---|
| SEC | 9 | 9 |
| Big Ten | 7 | 8 |
| Big 12 | 4 | 4 |
| ACC | 4 | 3 |
| Independent | 1 | 1 |
The one change is a straight swap between two conferences. The Big Ten lost a place when Michigan dropped out; the ACC gained one when Virginia came in. The SEC’s nine is still the largest bloc, and it now holds six of the top eleven.
Others receiving votes
Boise State 86, Florida 83, Michigan 69, Arizona 33, Memphis 23, South Carolina 19, Western Michigan 12, Pittsburgh 11, Navy 10, UCLA 7, Virginia Tech 6, Illinois 6, James Madison 4, Minnesota 4, Colorado 3, Auburn 2, Arizona State 2, Vanderbilt 2.
That is eighteen teams. Clemson, which topped this list in the preseason on 112 points, has disappeared from it entirely.
Michigan is the name to watch here. It was ranked 16th a week ago and is now third among the unranked, on 69 points — close, but comfortably behind Boise State and Florida, and a long way from Virginia’s 89 at 25th. The coaches still have it at 24.
What has a preseason No. 1 been worth historically?
Not much of a guarantee, on the record so far.
Since AP began publishing preseason polls in 1950, 11 teams have started and finished a season at No. 1. The most recent was Alabama in 2017, which is also the only team to have gone wire to wire in the College Football Playoff era. Across this century, only two teams that opened at No. 1 finished as champions: USC in 2004 and Alabama in 2017.
That is a record of what has happened, not a claim about what will. Ohio State has now cleared one week of it, and 25 weeks of Alabama’s 2017 is what the rest of that road looks like.
When does this poll change next?
Every Sunday from here. The 8 September release was the one-off: AP’s page tied it to the launch of its Fan Poll, which is why it landed on a Tuesday after Labor Day rather than a weekend.
AP’s own page now schedules the next AP Top 25 for Sunday 13 September at 2 p.m. ET, with Fan Poll voting for that round closing 10 September at 7 p.m. After that the poll runs weekly to the end of the regular season.
So the ballot above has a shelf life of four days, and every rank, record and vote count on this page is superseded on Sunday afternoon.
What to watch
- Watch the first-place votes, not just the rank. Oregon dropped four places, which reads as a modest slide — but it lost eleven of its fourteen first-place votes, which is a much bigger shift in what voters actually think.
- Georgia is second and has zero first-place votes. That has now persisted across two ballots, so it is a pattern rather than a quirk.
- Louisville at 24 with a loss is the ballot’s soft spot. It is the only ranked team with a defeat, the coaches have already dropped it, and Virginia at 25 is only 74 points behind.
- Michigan is 20 points from the bottom of the poll on the others-receiving-votes list, and still 24th in the coaches’ ballot. One result puts it back.
- Southern Cal has played a game more than everyone else. Any comparison of its record with the rest of the top 15 is not like-for-like yet.
- Ignore anything that prices this. The poll and its vote counts are published and checkable. Anything quoting you a number about how the season ends is somebody’s guess with a decimal point on it.
Sources
| Source | What it supports here |
|---|---|
| NCAA.com: Associated Press Top 25 | The full ranking with records, points, first-place votes and previous positions, labelled “Through Games SEP. 7, 2026”, plus the others-receiving-votes list |
| ESPN: College football rankings | Independent confirmation of every AP figure, the full AFCA Coaches Poll used for the comparison, and the explicit “Dropped from rankings: Michigan 16” line |
| AP Top 25 college football poll | The release schedule — next Top 25 on 13 September at 2 p.m. ET, Fan Poll voting closing 10 September at 7 p.m. — and the voter list behind the 69-strong panel. Read in a browser; a plain request returns a page shell with the poll missing |
Checked 9 September 2026. The Week 2 ranking was parsed from NCAA.com and confirmed figure-by-figure against ESPN before publication. The three preseason sources this page previously cited — CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports and two Sports Illustrated pages — supported the August ballot and have been dropped, because they do not cover this one. No affiliate links, and no payment was received for any link on this page.
How we verified this
Every rank, record, points total and first-place vote in the Week 2 table was parsed from NCAA.com’s AP table and then independently confirmed against ESPN, which publishes the AP and Coaches ballots side by side. The two agree to the point — Ohio State 1,684 with 46 first-place votes, Georgia 1,532 — so this is two sources, not one read twice.
The panel size is checked by arithmetic every time this page is updated. Every voter casts exactly one first-place vote, so the first-place votes must sum to the number of voters. In this poll they sum to 69 — Ohio State 46, Indiana 8, LSU 5, Notre Dame 4, Oregon 3, Texas 2, Miami 1 — matching the 69-strong panel counted by name on AP’s own page in August. A sum that misses would mean a team had been dropped from the list.
The Coaches Poll panel size is derived, and labelled as derived. Its first-place votes total 74 — Ohio State 50, Indiana 11, Georgia 7, Notre Dame 4, Texas 1, Oregon 1 — which by the same logic implies a 74-member panel. No source we used publishes that figure, so it is arithmetic rather than a stated number, and it is not the 72 implied by the preseason ballot.
Michigan’s disappearance was confirmed rather than inferred from absence. A team missing from a top 25 could equally be a parsing failure. ESPN prints “Dropped from rankings: Michigan 16” explicitly, and Michigan appears in AP’s others-receiving-votes list on 69 points, so it is out of the poll and not out of our parser.
The poll comparison was computed, not eyeballed. Setting the two current rankings side by side gives 23 teams in common, 18 of them at identical ranks and 5 differing by one or two places, with two teams unique to each poll. Those are the numbers quoted.
The conference counts are our own, recomputed from the new 25. Assigning each team to its 2026 conference gives SEC 9, Big Ten 7, Big 12 4, ACC 4 and one independent, totalling 25. Note this is not the preseason split: the Big Ten lost a place when Michigan dropped out and the ACC gained one when Virginia came in.
⚠️ Records are as of games through 7 September and will be wrong within days. Southern Cal is 2-0 where every other ranked team has played once, and Louisville is 0-1 while still ranked 24th. Both are correct for this ballot and both are the first things to go stale.
One entry in “others receiving votes” was reconciled on a second reading, and removed. Two secondary sources list Louisiana with four points, in the same position in the order. Our first read of AP’s page did not show it while matching every other entry, and it was published anyway, flagged. Reading AP’s page again on 19 August gives the same result — twenty-four teams, no Louisiana, every other entry and point value identical — so the entry has been taken out. Where a secondary source and the primary source disagree twice, the primary source wins.
✅ The two polls are now readings of the same moment. Both cover games through 7 September, unlike the preseason pair on this page previously, which were released 13 days apart and whose differences were therefore part opinion and part calendar. The remaining disagreements are opinion.
No betting odds, futures, title prices or win totals appear anywhere on this page. That is a site-wide rule. This page reports a published poll and the arithmetic within it.
We make no prediction of our own. The historical note about preseason No. 1 teams is a record of what has already happened, not a forecast about this season.