The Associated Press has released its first Top 25 of the soon-to-be-arriving 2015 college football season, and to no surprise, Ohio State starts out at No. 1, although the fact that they picked up all 61 first-place votes is slightly surprising -- somebody somewhere always likes to go against the grain. Although an old-money program like the Buckeyes are certainly more likely to get some benefit of the doubt.
LSU comes in at 14th, which seems about right given where they started out in the coaches poll. Among teams on LSU's schedule, Alabama comes in at 3rd, Auburn 6th, with Ole Miss and Arkansas 17th and 18th respectively.
Ranking | Team | First-place votes |
1 | Ohio State | 61 |
2 | TCU | 0 |
3 | Alabama | 0 |
4 | Baylor | 0 |
5 | Michigan State | 0 |
6 | Auburn | 0 |
7 | Oregon | 0 |
8 | USC | 0 |
9 | Georgia | 0 |
10 | Florida State | 0 |
11 | Notre Dame | 0 |
12 | Clemson | 0 |
13 | UCLA | 0 |
14 | LSU | 0 |
15 | Arizona State | 0 |
16 | Georgia Tech | 0 |
17 | Ole Miss | 0 |
18 | Arkansas | 0 |
19 | Oklahoma | 0 |
20 | Wisconsin | 0 |
21 | Stanford | 0 |
22 | Arizona | 0 |
23 | Boise State | 0 |
24 | Missouri | 0 |
25 | Tennessee | 0 |
It's kind of the chic thing to point out that the AP Poll is "irrelevant," since the organization asked that it be taken out of the BCS formula 10 years ago, but I don't think that's entirely accurate. People, such as the ones that make up the College Football Playoff committee, are naturally prone to biases, and any sort of poll helps to create certain assumptions. You think any of those people are going to actually watch all of these teams play and THEN rank 'em? Of course not. So the poll helps create that baseline pecking order in their head. Which makes it somewhat relevant.
Anyway, we're under the two week mark folks. Time to start getting excited.