Big Ten Locks Rare Preseason 1-2 as Indiana Champ Sits Sixth

Ohio State opened the 2026 season as the Associated Press preseason No. 1 with 40 first-place votes and 1,672 points, ahead of Oregon’s 14 first-place votes and 1,597 points, giving the Big Ten the top two spots for the first time in 65 years. Georgia sat third at 1,513 points with no first-place support, Notre Dame fourth with six first-place votes, and Texas fifth. Defending national champion Indiana, fresh off a 16-0 season, landed at No. 6 with eight first-place votes of its own.

The last time the Big Ten owned Nos. 1 and 2 in the preseason was 1961, when Iowa and Ohio State topped the board. Iowa started 4-0 then lost four of its last five and finished unranked. Ohio State went 8-0-1 and ended No. 2 behind Alabama. History hangs over this edition too.

Big Ten Owns the Crown Spots Again

Ohio State enters as preseason No. 1 for the ninth time and the first since 2015, tying Alabama for second-most all-time behind Oklahoma’s 10. The Buckeyes return Heisman finalist quarterback Julian Sayin, receiver Jeremiah Smith and 1,000-yard rusher Bo Jackson. They have been favored in 31 straight games, the longest active streak in the FBS. Ryan Day’s club visits Texas in Week 2 and faces five ranked Big Ten foes in conference play, including at Indiana and home against Oregon.

Oregon sits at its highest preseason ranking ever after four prior starts at No. 3. Dan Lanning is 48-8 in four seasons at the school, tied with Day for third-best among active FBS coaches over that span. The Ducks open against Boise State on CBS.

That shared coaching mark frames the top of the poll. Both staffs have won at a near-identical clip since Lanning arrived, and both programs now sit above every SEC team before a snap has been played. The returning production at Ohio State explains the 75-point gap over Oregon; the Ducks’ climb from repeated No. 3 starts explains why voters still parked 14 first-place ballots on them.

• Ohio State: ninth preseason No. 1, first since 2015, 31-game favorite streak
• Oregon: highest preseason rank in program history, four earlier starts at No. 3
• Shared coaching mark: Lanning 48-8, tied with Day for third-best active FBS pace over four seasons
• Conference haul: eight Top 25 teams and the last three playoff titles

The conference has claimed the last three College Football Playoff titles (Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana) and aims for a fourth straight. It placed eight teams in the Top 25. Four Big 12 teams and three ACC teams also made the cut. No Group of 5 school cracked the field; Boise State led the also-receiving-votes group.

Voters followed a simple system: 25 points for a first-place vote, 24 for second, down to one for 25th. Sixty-nine media members cast ballots this cycle. The full AP Top 25 college football poll updates weekly once games begin.

Defending Champion Indiana Opens Outside the Top Five

Indiana became the first modern team to finish 16-0 last season. It returns substantial talent and landed a top-10 transfer class, yet starts at No. 6. That makes the Hoosiers the seventh returning national champion in 40 years, and the second in three years, ranked outside the top five. Michigan opened 2024 at No. 9 after its title.

The quarterback change from Heisman winner and top NFL pick Fernando Mendoza to TCU transfer Josh Hoover appears to have created voter hesitation. Indiana still drew eight first-place votes, second only to Ohio State, showing real split opinion. The Hoosiers face four teams that finished ranked in the final 2025 AP poll. They open at home against North Texas on Fox.

• 2025 record: 16-0, first modern perfect season of that length
• First-place votes: 8, more than every team except Ohio State
• Key return concern: New starting QB after Mendoza’s departure
• Schedule note: Four games vs final-2025 ranked opponents

On X, Hoosier accounts and podcasts immediately labeled the ranking too low. The variance in ballots matched the public split: some voters saw a true contender, others saw regression risk after the portal and draft losses.

The eight first-place votes matter as much as the No. 6 slot. A defending champion with that much top-ballot support can rise quickly if Hoover steadies the offense against the four returning ranked foes on the slate. The same math that parked Indiana outside the top five leaves a short climb back if September goes cleanly.

SEC Claims Nine Teams and Zero First-Place Votes

The Southeastern Conference placed nine teams in the preseason Top 25 for the third straight year and put five in the top 10 for the first time since 2013. None of those nine received a first-place vote. Georgia leads the group at No. 3 and enters the top five for the ninth consecutive season. The Bulldogs open against Tennessee State and close the regular season at home against Georgia Tech, a series Georgia has won eight straight times.

Texas, last year’s preseason No. 1, sits fifth after averaging just 388.5 yards, 6.0 yards per play and 137.8 rushing yards per game in 2025, its lowest marks under Steve Sarkisian. Arch Manning enters Year 2 as the full-time starter and a Heisman favorite. Texas A&M is eighth, its first top-10 preseason spot since 2022. Ole Miss is ninth under new coach Pete Golding. Oklahoma is tenth, its first top-10 preseason ranking since 2022.

• Georgia (No. 3)
• Texas (No. 5)
• Texas A&M (No. 8)
• Ole Miss (No. 9)
• Oklahoma (No. 10)
• LSU (No. 11)
• Alabama (No. 13)
• Tennessee (No. 20)
• Missouri (No. 25)

The volume is real. The absence of first-place love is the counterweight voters applied.

Five teams inside the top 10 without a single first-place ballot is the clearest signal in the poll. Voters trusted SEC depth enough to fill the middle and upper tiers, yet refused to hand any of those clubs the top line. Georgia’s ninth straight top-five open and Texas’s drop from last year’s preseason No. 1 both fit that pattern: respect without the crown.

I love the polls for college football fans, for the excitement, for the marquee matchups, for all those things. But the polls, internally, they just don’t matter. They’re really irrelevant. I think we’ve gotten to a point now as a team to understand that what matters is how we play each and every Saturday.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said that after the rankings dropped. The words fit a program that has lived near the top for three straight preseason cycles.

September Games That Usually Rewrite the Board

Ohio State at Texas on Sept. 12 is the clearest early detonator. Oklahoma visits Michigan the same day. Those two Big Ten-SEC collisions will test the poll’s hierarchy before conference play deepens. LSU opens the Lane Kiffin era against Clemson on ABC, just the second regular-season meeting between the programs. Miami travels more than 2,500 miles to Stanford for its opener, only the second true road start for the Hurricanes in the last decade.

1. Aug. 29: USC vs San Jose State (Week 0)
2. Sept. 3: Utah vs Idaho; Missouri vs Arkansas-Pine Bluff
3. Sept. 4: Miami at Stanford; Oklahoma vs UTEP
4. Sept. 5: Ohio State vs Ball State; Oregon vs Boise State; Georgia vs Tennessee State; Texas vs Texas State; Indiana vs North Texas; LSU vs Clemson
5. Sept. 6: Notre Dame vs Wisconsin; Ole Miss vs Louisville
6. Sept. 12: Ohio State at Texas; Oklahoma at Michigan

Penn State avoids Ohio State, Oregon and Indiana entirely in the regular season. USC opens with three nonconference games then flies roughly 2,700 miles to Rutgers to start Big Ten play. Since joining the conference the Trojans are 3-6 on the road in league games and 8-1 at home.

The Sept. 12 doubleheader carries the heaviest early weight. A road win for Ohio State at Texas would harden the No. 1 case; a home win for Texas would reopen the first-place debate the preseason ballots closed. Oklahoma at Michigan, played the same day, offers a second Big Ten-SEC reading before league schedules take over.

Kiffin’s LSU and the Crowded Middle

Lane Kiffin’s first LSU team sits at No. 11 after a 7-6 unranked finish the year before. The Tigers have not reached the College Football Playoff since the 2019 title and have lost at least four games in five of the six seasons since. Expectations in Baton Rouge are high. In the coaches poll released earlier, the Lane Kiffin era ranked No. 13 by coaches.

Texas Tech is the highest Big 12 team at No. 12 and opens with three in-state opponents in its first four games. The Red Raiders have not lost to any of those three since 2009. Alabama is 13th and seeks revenge against Florida State in Week 3. BYU and USC share No. 14. The Cougars are 23-4 over two seasons and one of five FBS teams with 11-plus wins each of the last two years, yet the only one of that group left out of the playoff.

Michigan, under a first-year head coach, sits 16th. Six of the last seven new Michigan coaches since Bo Schembechler in 1969 won at least eight games. Washington is 17th with quarterback Demond Williams coming off 25 touchdown passes. Penn State is 18th. SMU is 19th and 1-4 against final AP Top 25 teams since joining the ACC. Tennessee is 20th and 5-0 in openers under Josh Heupel. Utah, Iowa, Houston, Louisville and Missouri round out the 25.

From No. 11 through No. 20 the gaps are thin and the storylines dense. One September stumble swaps several of these clubs overnight, which is why the middle of the board usually moves faster than the top once the games begin.

The Big Ten Chases Four Titles in a Row

Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana delivered the last three College Football Playoff titles. A fourth straight would extend a run no other conference can match across this stretch. Eight Big Ten teams in the preseason Top 25 give the league the depth to chase that mark even if one contender slips.

The path is harder than the headline. Ohio State must travel to Texas in Week 2 and later face five ranked conference foes, including at Indiana and at home against Oregon. Indiana, already outside the top five, draws four opponents who finished ranked in the final 2025 poll. Oregon opens on national television against Boise State before the league slate tightens.

Prestige at Nos. 1 and 2 does not guarantee April hardware. The same conference that owns the crown slots also owns the hardest internal gauntlet on the board, and the Sept. 12 trip to Texas is the first external exam.

First-Place Votes Split Across the Contenders

Sixty-nine voters distributed the top line with unusual breadth. Ohio State took 40 first-place votes, Oregon 14, Indiana 8 and Notre Dame 6. Georgia and Texas, third and fifth in points, received none.

• Ohio State: 40 first-place votes, 1,672 points
• Oregon: 14 first-place votes, 1,597 points
• Indiana: 8 first-place votes, ranked No. 6
• Notre Dame: 6 first-place votes, ranked No. 4
• Georgia and Texas: 0 first-place votes despite top-five points

That spread shows how the ballot worked in practice. A first-place vote is worth 25 points, so Indiana’s eight top ballots kept the defending champion close even while the bulk of voters filed the Hoosiers sixth. Oregon’s 14 kept the Ducks within 75 points of No. 1. Georgia’s clean shutout on the top line left the Bulldogs third on points alone.

The split also previews September volatility. Any of the four clubs that drew first-place support can claim a clearer hierarchy with one statement win, and the two SEC powers locked out of that column have the early stages to force their way back into it.

How the Opening Weeks Usually Sort the Field

Ten of the 12 College Football Playoff teams from last season are ranked. James Madison and Tulane are the two missing Group of 5 sides. Houston earned its first preseason ranking in four years. Missouri has won eight games three straight seasons, the second-longest such streak in program history.

Notre Dame brings a 10-game winning streak and its highest preseason ranking since No. 2 in 2006. CJ Carr becomes the first Irish quarterback to start consecutive season openers since 2019-20. The Irish open against Wisconsin on NBC.

The 1961 parallel remains useful only as caution. That Big Ten 1-2 did not survive the season. Iowa’s collapse from a 4-0 start and Ohio State’s finish behind Alabama still sit in the record. This one faces immediate cross-conference pressure and a defending champion with enough first-place support to climb fast if the new quarterback settles in.

The poll gives the Big Ten the prestige slots and the SEC the raw numbers. September decides which story sticks.