Preseason AP Poll Released Utah Outside Top 25

The preseason AP Poll came out today, and the Utah Utes are outside the top 25. The Utes received 74 votes, which puts them at No. 28. The defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide claimed the top spot. Rounding out the rest of the top five is Clemson, Oklahoma, Florida State, and LSU. The Pac-12 is led by Stanford at No. 8, followed by Washington (No. 14), UCLA (No. 16), USC (No. 20), and Oregon (No. 24). The last time the Pac-10/12 had fewer than two preseason top 10 teams was in 2010 when no Pac-10 teams were ranked in the top 10 (Oregon led the way at No. 11).

The last time the preseason No. 1 team finished ranked No. 1 was 2004 USC. Since 2007, only 2014 Florida State played in the BCS National Championship/College Football Playoff as AP preseason No. 1. CBS Sports writer Jon Solomon wrote an article about the inaccuracies of the preseason AP Poll (that you can find here). In his article, he states that it has been nine straight seasons with at least three preseason AP top 10 teams finishing with four or more losses (36% of preseason AP top 10 teams have finished with four or more losses since 2007). Houston (No. 8) and Iowa (No. 9) failed to receive any votes in the preseason AP Poll and finished ranked in the final AP top 10. Hopefully for the Pac-12, who missed the College Football Playoff last year, the preseason poll is wrong and one Pac-12 team can make the College Football Playoff this year.