With just five days to go until the first game of the 2017 college football season, we officially have our final set of preseason rankings and now know that the most anticipated game of the offseason will feature No. 1 Alabama against No. 3 Florida State on Saturday, Sept. 2 in Atlanta.
While Alabama has been the overwhelming No. 1 in the AP poll, the Coaches Poll and the CBS Sports 130, the Tide's title hopes rest on becoming the first team since USC in 2004 to win the national championship after starting the year No. 1 in the preseason polls. For the 2017 Trojans, the No. 4 preseason ranking is the highest since a Lane Kiffin and Matt Barkley-led USC squad held the top spot heading into the 2012 season.
Broken down by conferences, the SEC has the most teams in the preseason poll with six, followed by the ACC and Big 12 with five each, Big Ten and Pac-12 with four each and USF representing the American Athletic Conference to round out the top-25.
Here's the full preseason AP Top 25 (first-place votes in parenthesis):
- Alabama (52)
- Ohio State (3)
- Florida State (4)
- USC (2)
- Clemson
- Penn State
- Oklahoma
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- Oklahoma State
- Michigan
- Auburn
- LSU
- Stanford
- Georgia
- Louisville
- Florida
- Miami
- South Florida
- Kansas State
- Virginia Tech
- West Virginia
- Texas
- Washington State
- Tennessee
Others receiving votes: TCU (98), Utah (85), Notre Dame (65), Boise State (37), NC State (26), Northwestern (25), Pittsburgh (23), Oregon (21), Houston (19), Colorado (18), UCLA (9), San Diego State (9), BYU (5), Appalachian State (4), Nebraska (4), Tulsa (4), Kentucky (3), Texas A&M (3), Michigan State (1).