College football preseason Coaches Poll Top 25 will show bias toward experience in rankings
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The college football preseason coaches poll drops Tuesday at noon ET, and the rankings will not match what the media thinks.
A panel of FBS head coaches fills out these ballots every year and every week during the season, and they vote differently than the writers do. A lot of them are much more entrenched in their habits and biases. They’re entitled to them. Many probably aren’t paying that close attention to the games every week since, y’know, they are busy getting it done on the field.
Coaches reward championships, long tenures and their interconnected network of old pals and familiar faces. They make young coaches wait their turn, maybe not putting those words in print, but in spirit. They give bumps to their peers. That’s life, and that’s college football. We’re all entitled to our opinions and biases. We like who we like.
This projection predicts the first coaches poll of the 2026 college football season with that bias built in, which is why it looks different from my AP Top 25 prediction published last week.
25. Washington Huskies
Quarterback Demond Williams returns after a contract standoff nearly sent him out of Seattle. He threw for 3,065 yards and 25 touchdowns and added 611 rushing yards in a 9-4 season. Jedd Fisch is a shorter-tenured name, and coaches will make him prove it.
24. Houston Cougars
Willie Fritz has coached for 33 years and won everywhere he has worked. The 66-year-old went 10-3 last season and beat LSU in the Texas Bowl. Quarterback Conner Weigman threw for 2,705 yards and 25 touchdowns while rushing for 700 yards and 11 scores.
23. Louisville Cardinals
Running back Isaac Brown turned down the transfer portal and came back to Jeff Brohm. Brown led the FBS in yards per carry in 2025 and has 2,057 rushing yards in two seasons. Brohm enters his fourth season leading his alma mater, and probably deserves better placement in the Top 25 after three straight nine-win seasons.
22. Utah Utes
Morgan Scalley is a first-year head coach, promoted on Dec. 13 after Kyle Whittingham stepped down. The Utes went 11-2 last season and closed with a 44-22 win over Nebraska in the Las Vegas Bowl, but this college football poll docks rosters led by rookie head coaches.
21. SMU Mustangs
Kevin Jennings enters his third year as the starter after throwing for nearly 7,000 yards across two seasons. Rhett Lashlee must replace his top two rushers and four of his top five receivers. Cal transfer Kendrick Raphael arrives after 943 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.
20. BYU Cougars
Even though Big 12 coaches picked the Cougars to win the league, this projection holds Provo outside the top 15. Sophomore Bear Bachmeier threw for 3,033 yards and rushed for a school-record 11 touchdowns as a freshman. Running back LJ Martin is the conference’s preseason offensive player of the year. The young quarterback is the reason veteran voters hold back.
19. Iowa Hawkeyes
Kirk Ferentz is the reason this ranking stands. The 70-year-old enters his 28th season, the longest active run in the FBS, and he passed Woody Hayes last September as the winningest coach in Big Ten history. The Hawkeyes have an open quarterback battle between Hank Brown and Jeremy Hecklinski, but Iowa has won at least eight games in five straight seasons. Coaches reward that floor every August.
18. Tennessee Volunteers
DeSean Bishop returns after the running back led the Vols with 1,076 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns last season. Josh Heupel hired veteran coordinator Jim Knowles to run the defense and added four Penn State transfers to help him do it. The Knoxville program breaks in a new starting quarterback, which is why Heupel’s team sits this low despite a proven ground game.
17. Penn State Nittany Lions
Matt Campbell begins his first season in State College after 10 years at Iowa State. Campbell brought 24 former Cyclones with him, including quarterback Rocco Becht, a fourth-year college starter with 9,274 career passing yards. Campbell has said Penn State can compete for a national title in Year 1. Coaches will want to see it against a Big Ten schedule before ranking the Nittany Lions higher.
16. Clemson Tigers
Dabo Swinney enters his 19th season as the third-longest-tenured coach in the FBS with two national titles and 187 wins, the most in ACC history. The Tigers went 7-6 last season, their worst record since 2010, so Swinney signed nine defensive transfers, including linebacker Sammy Brown, who had 106 tackles. This is the most veteran-friendly ranking on the ballot.
15. USC Trojans
Jayden Maiava returns for his second full season as the starter under Lincoln Riley after throwing for 3,431 yards and 23 touchdowns in 2025. USC pairs a heavy group of returning starters with the top-ranked recruiting class in the country. Media polls buy that talent up front, while coaches make Riley show results in the fall first.
14. Michigan Wolverines
Coaches respect what Kyle Whittingham has done. The 66-year-old left Utah as the program’s all-time wins leader at 177-88 and ranked as the third-winningest active FBS coach when Michigan hired him in December. Sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood, the top recruit in the 2025 class, returns after winning nine games as a true freshman. The pairing of a proven coach and a rising passer earns a bump from this voting bloc.
13. Ole Miss Rebels
Pete Golding coached the Rebels to the Playoff semifinals after Lane Kiffin left, but this is his first full season as a head coach, and the men voting have decades on him. Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss returned after throwing for 3,937 yards with 22 touchdowns and three interceptions, and running back Kewan Lacy is back alongside the nation’s second-ranked transfer class.
12. Texas Tech Red Raiders
After winning the Big 12 and reaching the Playoff, Texas Tech holds this position. Joey McGuire lost quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who will not play in 2026 after an NCAA gambling case ended his time in Lubbock. Will Hammond takes over, and McGuire expects him to be fully cleared from a torn ACL on Aug. 21. The defense returns linebackers Ben Roberts and Austin Romaine from a unit that carried the conference champion.
11. Oklahoma Sooners
A defense that allowed 15.5 points per game carried the Sooners to the Playoff. Linebacker Kip Lewis returns after a team-high 76 tackles, and defensive tackle David Stone is a Walter Camp preseason All-American. Quarterback John Mateer is back healthy after thumb surgery split his 2025 season in half. Brent Venables built his reputation on defense, and his peers know exactly what this unit is.
10. LSU Tigers
College football coaches know Lane Kiffin. For better or worse. The first-year Tigers coach replaced the fired Brian Kelly and rebuilt the offense around Sam Leavitt, the top quarterback in the transfer portal. Kiffin has insisted all offseason that Leavitt’s foot is healthy, despite an injury that clouded his arrival from Arizona State.
Sophomore running back Harlem Berry returns after starting the final six games of his freshman year, and the receiver room added double-digit newcomers. The season opens against Clemson in Kiffin’s debut, and his peers will rank him mostly favorably in the Top 25 on reputation until then.
9. Texas A&M Aggies
Marcel Reed enters his second season as the full-time starter and his first as a team captain. Reed threw for 3,169 yards and 25 touchdowns while rushing for 493 yards and six scores in an 11-2 season that produced the program’s first Playoff berth. He became the first Aggies quarterback to attend SEC Media Days since Kellen Mond in 2019.
Mike Elko returns running back Rueben Owens II and first-team preseason All-SEC receiver Mario Craver, and the College Station roster carries fewer questions than most of the teams ranked around it.
8. Miami Hurricanes
After falling 27-21 to Indiana in the national championship game, Miami takes this spot. Mario Cristobal landed his third straight big-name transfer quarterback by signing Darian Mensah away from ACC rival Duke. Mensah threw 34 touchdowns against six interceptions and led the Blue Devils to their first outright conference title since 1962, and voters made him the preseason ACC Player of the Year.
The Hurricanes also claimed a third of the spots on the conference’s preseason all-league team as the ACC favorite. The national runner-up almost always starts high on coaches’ ballots, and this roster gives the room no reason to vote otherwise.
7. Alabama Crimson Tide
The boldest call on this ballot comes here. The Crimson Tide enter August without a starting quarterback after Ty Simpson left for the NFL Draft. Austin Mack, in his fourth year in the system, and second-year passer Keelon Russell carried their competition into fall camp with no public leader.
Media voters will punish that uncertainty and slot Alabama in the mid-teens, but coaches vote the brand, the recruiting and Kalen DeBoer’s track record. Cornerback Zabien Brown leads a secondary that returns safeties Keon Sabb and Bray Hubbard, and the voting room has given Tuscaloosa the benefit of the doubt for decades.
6. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Marcus Freeman is one of the youngest coaches in the top ten, which explains this projection two spots below our AP prediction. Quarterback CJ Carr enters the fall as one of the Heisman favorites after throwing for 2,741 yards with 24 touchdowns and six interceptions as a first-year starter.
Carr is also the first returning starting quarterback of the Freeman era. The Irish must replace the running back tandem of Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price, and last December’s snub by the committee of a 10-2 team has fueled the entire offseason in South Bend.
5. Oregon Ducks
Dante Moore passed up a projected top-five draft slot and returned after throwing for 3,565 yards and 30 touchdowns with 10 interceptions in a 13-2 season that ended in the Playoff semifinals. Receiver Evan Stewart is back after missing all of 2025, and this defensive line is crazy good.
Dan Lanning owns a semifinal run and one of the sport’s best rosters, but he is one of the youngest college football coaches in the top ten, so we’ve docked him a point or two.
4. Texas Longhorns
Arch Manning enters his second season as the starter after throwing for 3,163 yards with 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions while adding 399 rushing yards and 10 more scores in a 10-3 season. Steve Sarkisian signed Auburn transfer receiver Cam Coleman to give his quarterback another downfield target, and Manning sits near the top of the list for candidates to win the Heisman.
Sarkisian has been coaching for more than two decades, and the Austin program checks the two boxes this ballot rewards most: an established name on the sideline and a famous one under center.
3. Georgia Bulldogs
Kirby Smart checks every box a coaches ballot rewards. Smart owns two national championships and two straight SEC titles, though the Bulldogs have gone one-and-done in consecutive Playoffs. Gunner Stockton enters his second full season as the starter with eight starters back from a defense some consider the best in the country.
Running back Nate Frazier returns behind an experienced offensive line. No coach in the SEC gets more respect from his peers than the man in Athens, and the ballot will show it in the point totals.
2. Indiana Hoosiers
Coaches put the national championship first and give due respect to those who have delivered success in the College Football Playoff. Curt Cignetti went 16-0, beat Miami on Jan. 19 and finished with the best record in major college football since 1894. Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza then went No. 1 overall to the Raiders, so Cignetti signed TCU transfer Josh Hoover, who threw for 3,472 yards and 29 touchdowns last season, as part of an 18-man portal class. The Bloomington boss told reporters in Chicago that he is “stalking complacency” this offseason. The defending champion starts second on this ballot and first on plenty of individual ones.
Indiana is one of my most underrated programs in college football entering 2026 and Cignetti is a big reason why.
1. Ohio State Buckeyes
Julian Sayin returns as a Heisman finalist after winning National Freshman of the Year in his first season as the starter. Jeremiah Smith was named Big Ten preseason offensive player of the year over Sayin and Oregon’s Dante Moore, and the junior receiver enters the fall within reach of all three of the program’s career receiving records. The Buckeyes went 12-2 with losses to Indiana and Miami, then sent 11 players to the draft.
New coordinator Arthur Smith inherits an offense that returns four starters on the line, and Ryan Day’s roster gives voters in both rankings the same answer at the top.
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