The preseason Associated Press Top 25 dominates fan and media discussions every football season before one snap is played.
Arguments take place over whether a school deserved to be ranked as high as it was or whether the Gators were snubbed from the rankings. However, these debates often mean nothing as soon as the season kicks off and the unpredictability of college football takes over.
With the Gators, who open against Florida Atlantic at 7:45 p.m. Saturday at Florida Field, starting this season two spots outside of the Top 25, the numbers could forecast their chances of being in the same spot at the end of the season.
Across the past five seasons, almost half of the teams included in the preseason Top 25 fell out of the rankings by the end of the season. Particularly, in three of these seasons, more than half of the teams ranked in the preseason were unranked at the end of the season.
Some teams ended up further away from preseason expectations than others.
Last season, the Gators started the season at No. 15, their only preseason Top 25 appearance in the coach Billy Napier era. The Gators finished the season 4-8 and without a permanent head coach.
Texas A&M began the 2022 season at No. 6. The Aggies finished the year 5-7 and missed bowl eligibility for the first time since 2008.
Indiana came into the 2021 season at No. 17 after appearing in the preseason Top 25 for the first time since in 1969. The Hoosiers went on to finish 2-10.
Additionally, the preseason polls had a blind spot for non-Power Five schools.
Tulane, North Texas and Navy all represented the American Athletic Conference in the Top 25 at the end of the 2025 season. Nevertheless, none of the teams were included in the preseason poll despite two AAC teams finishing in the Top 25 in 2024.
Similarly, Boise State in 2024 climbed from unranked in the preseason to the No. 8 spot by the end of the season on the back of Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty.
Also, the vast majority of the teams which fell out of the Top 25 by the end of each season were in the Power Five. Particularly, Power Five schools made up more than 90% of these teams.
On the other hand, the top five each preseason was a better indicator of team success for the regular season. Only two teams in the past five seasons finished the season unranked after being a top-five team in the preseason.
Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas fill out this year’s preseason top 5 teams. Georgia and Ohio State continue a now nine-season streak of both teams being in the preseason top 5.
Adam Lichtenstein, South Florida Sun Sentinel Miami Hurricanes beat reporter and AP poll voter, explained that he put an immense effort into making his preseason rankings, but he does not see it as a prediction as much as just what he thinks at that moment.
“If the best team in the country plays the third best team in the country [100 times], … the third best team is going to win 40 of those times,” Lichtenstein said.
Lichtenstein shed additional light on the process by revealing that the AP does not give any guidelines to voters besides to not be biased, so every voter has their own process of deciding the top teams.
With 69 voters, each with a different method of determining the top 25 teams in college football, rankings decisions are bound to be critiqued, pondered over and wrong.
To Lichtenstein, these arguments are part of what makes sports fun.
“There’s probably 10, 15, 20 teams that are capable of having an excellent season and winning a national title, especially in college football, which is why I love it so much. Weird stuff happens all the time,” Lichtenstein said.
