Associated Press Preseason Top 25 it is – to some extent – a projection for the season to come.
Last season, he made a solid work of this with 17 teams which started the season classified ending like this.
With the College Football Playoff field about to triple in size, from four to 12 teams, How will preseason polling perform as a playoff predictor?
To give you an idea, the AP compared the 2014-23 preseason rankings with the final CFP rankings from those years – those that defined the semifinal matchups and other New Year’s Six bowls.
Using these rankings as a guide to how a 12-team CFP would have ranked over the system’s first 10 years, here’s how the preseason AP Top 25 would have projected the field each season. The analysis uses the original plan that gave automatic bids to the CFP committee’s six highest-ranked conference champions; the disappearance of the Pac-12 caused a switch to a 5-7 formatwhere seven at-large selections will join five league champions in the field.
– Over the 10-year period, an average of nine teams in a 12-team playoff would have started the season ranked by the AP.
– The AP preseason No. 1 team would have made a 12-team playoff each season. Sete would have deserved a bye in the first round.
– The AP preseason No. 2 would have made the 12-team playoffs eight times, with exceptions in 2019 Alabama and 2021 Oklahoma. The 2021 preseason poll was challenging since expectations for teams were based on a pandemic-affected 2020 season: Six teams that would have made a 12-team playoff in 2021 began that season unranked by the AP ( including Big Ten champion Michigan, Big 12 champion Baylor and ACC champion Pitt).
— Unpredictability continued into 2022, when five teams that would have made a 12-team playoff began the season unranked by the AP, including national runner-up TCU. Last season, however, Missouri was the only preseason unranked team in a power conference that would have made a 12-team playoff. Conference USA champion Liberty also would have made the CFP after starting the season unranked.
– Overall, 29 teams from 2014-23 that began the season unranked by the AP would have made it to a 12-team playoff.
No. 1 – 10 of the top 10 teams in the 2014-2023 preseason AP Top 25 would have made it to a 12-team playoff.
No. 2 – 8/10
No. 3 – 8/10
#4 – 7/10
#5 – 7/10
No. 6 – 4/10
No. 7 – 5/10
No. 8 – 7/10
No. 9 – 2/10
No. 10 – 4/10
No. 11 – 3/10
No. 12 – 4/10
No. 13 – 1/10
No. 14 – 10/04
No. 15 – 3/10
No. 16 – 0/10
No. 17 – 0/10
No. 18 – 10/02
No. 19 – 10/02
No. 20 – 3/10
No. 21 – 3/10
No. 22 – 1/10
No. 23 – 1/10
No. 24 – 1/10
No. 25 – 1/10
This analysis suggests that if you are looking for playoff teams in the preseason Top 25, write:
— Four of the five best teams.
— Two classified between 6-10.
— Two classified between 11-20.
— One classified between 21-25.
— Three unclassified teams. The first 12-team playoff already guarantees at least one unranked team in the field because only four conferences are represented in AP’s 2024 preseason poll and five conference champions are guaranteed places.
If the AP preseason poll was used to fill a 12-team CFP bracket, it would look like this in the first round and quarterfinals:
– 12 seed Boise State at 5 seed Oregon, winner vs. 4 seed Utah in the Fiesta Bowl.
– 9-seed Notre Dame and 8-seed Ole Miss, winner against 1-seed Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
– 11 seed Missouri and 6 seed Texas, winner against 3 seed Florida State in the Peach Bowl.
– 10 seed Michigan vs. 7 seed Alabama, winner vs. 2 seed Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.
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Follow Ralph D. Russo on https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP
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