The countdown to the 2015 college football season hit its final major milestone with the release of the first Associated Press Top 25 poll and history was made with this year’s preseason rankings. The defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes became the first unanimous No. 1 in the history of the poll. The projected College Football Playoff zone included the TCU Horned Frogs, Alabama Crimson Tide and Baylor Bears, but there were some teams that had to be disappointed with the preseason poll results. Here is a look at the biggest winners and losers of the first AP Top 25 poll.
Winner: Big 12
One of the biggest storylines of last year’s College Football Playoff selection was the Big 12’s snub as neither TCU nor Baylor was given the opportunity many felt they deserved with Ohio State getting the final spot instead of one of those programs. Everybody knows how that situation played out with the Buckeyes going on to win the national championship and while the Big 12 refused to implement a conference championship game despite that the lack of one was easily the biggest factor in them not getting in last year, they have to be happy with the first AP poll. TCU is listed at No. 2 behind the defending champion Ohio State while Baylor is listed at No. 4. TCU versus Baylor might very well be the most highly anticipated game of the season and it looks like this time around, the winner of that game could end up in the playoff…assuming they take care of the rest of their business.
Winner: Pac-12
The Pac-12 might not have a team listed among the top four but they do have six programs listed among the Top 25 including the No. 7 Oregon Ducks, No. 8 USC Trojans, No. 13 UCLA Bruins, No. 15 Arizona State Sun Devils, No. 21 Stanford Cardinal and No. 22 Arizona Wildcats. Oregon lost Marcus Mariota and returns just 12 starters from last year’s national runner-up while USC appears to be at a crossroads following another disappointing season, but both teams are listed among the top 10 in the country. The Pac-12 might not have a team in this year’s College Football Playoff as of now but they are clearly still getting a ton of respect on the national stage and are among the winners of the first AP preseason poll.
That should hurt recruiting. https://t.co/UEUGS1DEqZ
— Sun Devil Memes (@SunDevilMemes) August 25, 2015
Loser: Big Ten
Ohio State is the obvious No. 1 but when it comes to the rest of the Big Ten it is clear they aren’t getting anywhere close to the same amount of respect as the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12. The Michigan State Spartans is listed in the top five but beyond that, the Big Ten only has one other team listed in the Top 25 with the Wisconsin Badgers. Meanwhile, the Penn State Nittany Lions and Nebraska Cornhuskers were left on the outside looking in. The Big Ten will get several chances to prove its worth early on this season with some interesting matchups including Nebraska versus BYU, and Michigan versus Utah, but they are undoubtedly among the biggest losers based on the AP Top 25 release.
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Loser: Boise State
Boise State has 17 returning starters from the team that won last year’s Fiesta Bowl and is the obvious favorite to take the Group of Five spot in the New Year’s Six bowls, and yet they are listed No. 23 in this year’s preseason poll. The Broncos have plenty of momentum after beating last year’s Pac-12 champion Arizona and certainly have the talent to make some noise this season, but they open at No. 23. They will have to work their way up the rankings after they didn’t get the respect they deserve from the AP in the preseason poll. They’ll be hoping that some of the top teams register at least one loss because they’ll have a hard time making a case unless someone in front of them slips up.
