Coaches Poll Preseason Top 25 All-Time College Football Rankings

Which college football programs got the most love and respect over the years in the preseason Coaches Poll?

The AP Poll started in 1936, but it didn’t start putting out a preseason ranking until 1950. That also happened to be the same year the Coaches Poll started up under the UPI (United Press International) before USA TODAY took over in 1991. However, there wasn’t a preseason poll until the 1978 season.

It might seem somewhat trivial now in a College Football Playoff era, but the preseason rankings used to be everything in the national championship chase.

For the most part – back in the poll-and-bowl era – if you were ranked in the preseason top five or so and kept on winning, that was it. You were locked in. It was a brutally flawed system – as opposed to current one that’s just painfully flawed – in lieu of any playoff format to determine a champion.

Most of college football’s national champions were based on nothing more than a belief of a voting base that didn’t have access to more than a few games a week. Even worse, the bowl games weren’t taken into account in the national championship voting until 1968 for the AP and 1974 for the Coaches Poll.

The point here is to see where the expectations were set. Over the years – at least since 1978 – how did the coaches (or the athletic department staffers who filled out the rankings for them) perceive the top teams before the respective seasons?

With the 2024 preseason Coaches Poll released and added to the mix - and after years and years of the status quo - there's a new No. 1.

Coaches Poll Preseason Top 25 All-Time College Football Rankings

CFN devised a scoring system giving every UPI/USA TODAY-ranked preseason No. 1 team 25 points, the No. 2 team 24, No. 3 23, and so on down to the bottom of the top 20 in the early years, and then it became the top 25 later on. The previous all-time preseason ranking is in parentheses.

Preseason Coaches Polls
1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s

1 Ohio State 789 (1)
2 Oklahoma 776 (2)
3 Florida State 716 (3)
4 Michigan 709 (4)
5 Alabama 708 (5)
6 Nebraska 588 (6)
7 Notre Dame 574 (8)
8 USC 573 (7)
9 Georgia 568 (9)
10 Texas 562 (T10)

AP Preseason Polls
All-Time Top 25 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s
1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s

11 Penn State 557 (T10)
12 Florida 516 (12)
13 LSU 512 (13)
14 Miami 498 (14)
15 Clemson 447 (15)
16 Auburn 410 (16)
17 Washington 378 (17)
18 Tennessee 368 (18)
19 Texas A&M 338 (19)
20 UCLA 295 (20)
21 Oregon 276 (22)
22 Wisconsin 260 (21)
23 Virginia Tech 220 (23)
24 Iowa 190 (24)
25 Arkansas 179 (25)

CFN Preview 2024 Rankings
101-134 | 76-100 | 51-75
26-50 | 11-25 | Top 10

Coaches Poll Preseason College Football Rankings All-Time Others Receiving Votes

26 Colorado 178 (26)
27 Pitt 159 (29)
28 Michigan State 157 (28)
29 Stanford 154 (27)
30 North Carolina 143 (30)
31 Kansas State 137 (32)
32 West Virginia 130 (31)
33 Oklahoma State 126 (34)
34 TCU 122 (33)
35 BYU 112 (35)
36 Arizona State 96 (36)
37 South Carolina 92 (37)
38 Syracuse 86 (38)
T39 Georgia Tech 83 (39)
T39 Ole Miss 83 (T47)
41 Baylor 80 (40)
42 Louisville 78 (41)
43 Boise State 77 (42)
44 Utah 76 (T47)
45 Missouri 73 (50)
46 Arizona 71 (T44)
47 Houston 69 (43)
48 Purdue 66 (T44)
49 Maryland 65 (46)
50 Cal 63 (T47)

51 Virginia 49 (51)
52 Illinois 48 (52)
T53 SMU 34 (53)
T53 NC State 34 (T60)
55 Mississippi State 32 (54)
56 Oregon State 29 (T51)
57 Iowa State 28 (56)
58 Cincinnati 24 (57)
59 Northwestern 22 (58)
60 Boston College 21 (T59)
61 Texas Tech 19 61
T62 UCF 17 (T62)
T62 Washington State 17 (T62)
T62 Kansas 17 (64)

65 Kentucky 14 (65)
66 Colorado State 13 (66)
67 Minnesota 11 (67)
T68 Rutgers 10 (T68)
T68 USF 10 (T68)
T68 Wake Forest 10 (T68)
71 Indiana 9 (71)
72 Southern Miss 6 (72)
73 Marshall 5 (73)
T74 Louisiana 3 (T74)
T74 Tulane 3 (T74)
T76 Coastal Carolina 2 (T74)
T76 Hawaii 2 (T74)
78 Fresno State 1 (78)

Preseason Coaches Polls
1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s