The American Conference may have finished 2025 with three teams in the AP Poll, but that momentum did not carry into the preseason picture for 2026.
For the third straight year, no American program cracked the preseason AP Top 25. The last time the league showed up before the season was the 2023 preseason poll, when Tulane entered at No. 24 after its Cotton Bowl win and a No. 9 finish in 2022.
There is still a little American flavor in the “others receiving votes” category. Navy sits tied with South Carolina as the 31st-highest ranked team nationally after collecting 10 votes.
Memphis is tied with California at No. 45 with two votes. Tulane, the reigning champion, picked up one vote - the fewest among the 12 teams that made the 2025 College Football Playoff.
Navy is the most stable of the three. Brian Newberry is back for his fourth season, and the Midshipmen bring back 11 starters after a program-record 11-win year.
But the roster won’t look exactly the same. Quarterback Blake Horvath, wide receiver Eli Heidenreich, and First Team All-American defensive tackle Landon Robinson are all gone.
Braxton Woodson is set to take over at quarterback as Navy tries to stack a third straight winning season and a third consecutive win over Army.
Memphis is headed in a very different direction under Charles Huff. Huff, who led Marshall to the 2024 Sun Belt title and spent 2025 at Southern Miss, inherited a 1-11 team and turned it into a seven-win group last fall.
Now he arrives at Memphis with 17 players and four coordinators/position coaches from Southern Miss. The Tigers return only one starter from last year’s 8-5 team, but they’re still chasing a 12th straight .500-or-better season and their first conference title since 2019.
Tulane, meanwhile, has been the American’s most consistent presence in the AP Poll since 2022. That run has survived into the new season, even after major turnover.
Jon Sumrall left for Florida, and the Green Wave lost a long list of key starters to the transfer portal. Safety Jack Tchienchou and outside linebacker Chris Rodgers are among the returners trying to keep the standard intact.
Under first-year head coach Will Hall, Tulane is aiming for a fifth straight American Championship Game appearance and a second straight CFP berth.
The broader history of the American in preseason AP Polls shows how unusual this stretch is. From 2016 through 2023, the league had at least one team ranked every year before the season. That run included Tulane at No. 24 in 2023, Cincinnati at No. 23 and Houston at No. 24 in 2022, Cincinnati at No. 8 in 2021, Cincinnati at No. 20 and UCF at No. 21 in 2020, UCF at No. 17 in 2019, UCF at No. 21 in 2018, South Florida at No. 19 in 2017, Houston at No. 15 in 2016, and Louisville at No. 9 in 2013.
At the top of the 2026 preseason AP Top 25, Ohio State is No. 1, followed by Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas. Indiana checks in at No.
6, Miami (FL) at No. 7, and the rest of the top 10 includes Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Oklahoma. The full top 25 also features LSU, Texas Tech, Alabama, BYU, USC, Michigan, Washington, Penn State, SMU, Tennessee, Utah, Iowa, Houston, Louisville and Missouri.