Since 1950, the AP Poll has put out a preseason list of top teams. Frequently, 30 to 50 percent of the teams are nowhere to be found by the end of the year.
Last year, Florida State tumbled from a top-five position in the AP Top 25 to finishing year unranked. After Deondre Francois was injured in the season opener against Alabama, it was inevitable that the Seminoles would struggle. But few saw such a comprehensive collapse, as Florida State scrambled for bowl eligibility through the year.
While few saw it coming, though, it is hardly unprecedented in the history of the poll.
The AP college football poll first came out in 1936, quickly becoming an institution within the sport. The poll provided a fun talking point across the country as teams vied to top the list. For the first decade after its foundation, the AP Poll waited until October to make its initial release in newspapers throughout the United States.
Then, in 1950, the Associated Press opted to release a preseason edition for the first time. That year, 11 of the 20 teams in the preseason Top 20 fell out of the poll by the end of the year. Included in those teams that fell hard from the poll were preseason No. 1 Notre Dame, which was coming off a national championship but couldn’t get over .500 after losing 1949 Heisman winner Leon Hart. Frank Leahy’s Fighting Irish squad finished the campaign 4-4-1.
The media members voting on the AP Poll each year are among the most intelligent and well-versed gridiron followers in the entire country. For the most part, the teams that make it on to the preseason list remain on the list over the course of the season. Yet each year, the AP regularly proves that the preseason rankings are effectively nothing more than educated guesses.
This week, Sunday Morning Quarterback takes a look at those teams that get high marks before the season starts but crumble once the action begins. Which teams most frequently show up in the preseason rankings but fail to live up to the billing?
Notre Dame, Pacific coast teams get the benefit of the doubt
After breaking even in 1950 and falling from preseason No. 1 to unranked at the end of the regular season, Notre Dame has remained a perennially popular pick in the preseason. On 20 occasions, the Fighting Irish have opened the year in the Top 20 or Top 25 only to disappoint in the end. But they are hardly the only team to get this preseason benefit of the doubt.
A popular refrain when it comes to college football is that there is a perceptible east-coast bias when it comes to rankings. If the preseason AP Poll is any indication, though, that narrative is the inverse of the truth. There could actually be an implicit bias toward teams from the Pacific coast, at least when it comes to filling out ballots before a new season.
USC sits right behind Notre Dame on the list of teams who fell from grace, falling completely out of the AP Poll 19 times in 68 years after being ranked in the preseason. Victory Bell rival UCLA has experienced the tumble 18 times, and Washington is one of three teams who have dealt with the drop on 17 occasions.
The rest of the top 10 on the list of teams who have most frequently appeared on the initial list of the season but failed to make the final list are a who’s who of college football history. Michigan State and Texas are the other two teams tied with Washington after falling out in 17 of 68 seasons. Ohio State has suffered the indignity 16 times, Florida on 15 occasions, and Texas A&M 14 times.
Which spot in the preseason poll has proven most likely to drop out?
Notre Dame’s fall from No. 1 to unranked was unprecedented in 1950, but it is also not unique in the circumstances. Since that stumble by the Irish, five other teams have started the year at No. 1 before sliding down and out of the rankings.
That included a stretch of four straight years where the top-ranked team in the preseason all failed to live up to the billing. Between 1961 and 1967, the AP Poll went from a Top 20 to a Top 10 for its preseason ranking. The 1961 edition had 20 teams in its final poll, making it an anomaly in the history of the rankings, but even that year Iowa was unable to remain ranked after going 5-4 in the first season under coach Jerry Burns.
Iowa’s fall started a trend, as Ohio State, USC, and Ole Miss all went from No. 1 to out of the poll over the next three years. With fewer spots in the AP Poll after it dropped to a Top 10, it was inevitable that it would take pollsters more time to adjust and that there would be more misses at the top. By 1968, the rankings had expanded back to a Top 20 and the rate of No. 1 teams left behind dropped dramatically.
Among the top five spots in the AP preseason rankings, No. 3 and No. 4 have historically been the unluckiest spots to open the ranking. But in general, the spots at greatest risk are the lowest spots in the poll. After going to a Top 25 format in 1989, No. 23 and No. 25 failed to stay in the AP Poll in 22 out of 29 seasons.
What should we take away from the track record of the AP Poll?
Breaking down the data is only so enlightening unless we can take away something more substantive than just a dive into the numbers. When parsing out data like this, the real question we must ask is what it all means and what we learned from such a look. Ultimately, we can take away a few things from looking at the AP Poll and the variance between the preseason and final versions in a given season.
First and foremost, powerhouses get the benefit of the doubt from pollsters when it comes to preseason polls. The reason why Notre Dame tops the list above listing the teams that have dropped out of the poll at least 10 times from preseason to final is because Notre Dame is an easy mark to slot into one of the empty spots in a preseason poll. The same holds true for all the other teams on the list, all of which are Power Five schools that are traditional contenders on a perennial basis.
Second, pollsters are all too happy to double down on a team that proved the previous year that they probably aren’t ready for prime-time. Take Notre Dame again. Between 1982 and 1985, pollsters put the Irish in the preseason AP Top 20 every year. And every year, Notre Dame tumbled out of the poll completely by the end of the year.
That was one of eight instances where a team went from being ranked in the preseason to finishing unranked by the end of the season in three or more consecutive years. Only one team has had that happen more than once. Surprisingly, that team is Washington. The Huskies were unsuccessfully ranked in the preseason poll from 1962 through 1964, again from 1985 through 1987, and once more between 1993 and 1995.
What that ultimately shows us is that AP pollsters are inclined to favor big-name programs when filling out their preseason ballots. A team like the Fighting Irish or Trojans or Bruins is naturally going to miss out on a Top 25 finish more frequently, because they are more frequently found in the poll in the first place.
So next season, if you see your favorite team in the preseason AP Top 25, view that selection with at least a little skepticism. At least some teams are inevitably bound to drop out of the rankings by the end of the year, and it could ultimately be your favorite that takes the plunge in the end.