The 2026 AP preseason poll handed out its usual mix of respect and side-eye, and a few teams came away with plenty of reason to feel slighted.
Texas might be the easiest case to make. The Longhorns checked in at No. 5, which is one spot behind where they landed in the coaches poll, but the bigger issue was the AP voters leaving them without a first-place vote at all.
Ohio State and Oregon drew the top support, Notre Dame picked up six first-place votes, Indiana got eight, and Miami even managed one. Texas got none of that love, and that had to sting.
Alabama’s placement at No. 13 looks even more jarring. The Tide have lost four games in each of the last two seasons, but this is still unfamiliar territory in Tuscaloosa.
The last time Alabama showed up this low in the preseason poll was 2008, Nick Saban’s second season after a 7-6 campaign in 2007. That kind of number is the sort of thing Alabama fans would rather leave buried in the past.
Of course, there’s another way to read it: maybe the ranking is exactly the kind of fuel Kalen DeBoer’s team needs.
Tennessee landed at No. 20, which leaves the Vols with a little less cushion than their fans would like. Josh Heupel’s last three teams opened in the top 25 and still fell short of the program’s first CFP win.
This group comes in with some real questions after averaging 39.8 points per game last year while the defense slipped. Still, the addition of new coordinator Jim Knowles gives Tennessee a clear reason to believe the AP may have sold them short.
Indiana’s No. 6 ranking also raises eyebrows. A year ago, the Hoosiers reached the CFP, rolled with a transfer quarterback who wasn’t exactly a headliner, and became one of the sport’s stories.
Since then, Indiana has lost just two games over the last two seasons, both to Ohio State and Notre Dame. The defending champions also made a quarterback change, bringing in highly touted TCU QB Josh Hoover to run the offense.
For a team with that kind of recent track record, being picked third in a conference where it has lost one game over the past two years feels a little off.
Penn State rounds out the group at No. 18, and the number looks easier to question than it first appears. The Nittany Lions went 7-6 last season, and Matt Campbell is the new face in town, but the margin for error in those losses was razor thin.
Five of the six defeats came by a combined 16 points. Turn a field goal into two games and a touchdown into three more, and Penn State is staring at an 11-1 season instead.
With Rocco Becht joining his former coach in a new place, the Nittany Lions have a path to making that No. 18 ranking look awfully generous.
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