With four FBS leagues dropping fall college football, including the Big Ten and Pac-12, what will the preseason AP Top 25 look like ahead of the 2020 season?
The 2020 college football season will look unlike anything fans have ever seen in their lifetimes. Much like the 1918 season that played out during the Spanish flu pandemic, the 151st season of college football history offers no consensus on whether or not to play.
Even with the Big Ten and Pac-12 joining the MAC and Mountain West in cancelling fall football, though, we will still see the Associated Press, coaches, and College Football Playoff selection committee releasing Top 25 rankings throughout the year.
While there are certainly legitimate reasons to question the validity of these lists in a season where more than 40 percent of FBS members will remain on the sidelines, Top 25 rankings have been a staple of college football since 1936 and won’t be going anywhere in these extraordinary times. Soon after the 2019 college season ended with LSU hoisting the College Football Playoff trophy, we released our own Way-Too-Early projections here at Saturday Blitz.
Without spring football it was impossible to update these projections. Now that we have a clearer idea of who will and will not be playing this fall, the situation is ripe for reevaluating where teams will end up this year. Especially without juggernauts like Ohio State and Oregon from the Big Ten and Pac-12, and with perennial Cinderella stories like Boise State also sidelined, the rankings will look dramatically different than they have in recent seasons.
Things should look familiar at the top, but beyond the dwindling list of contenders there is ample space for surprises.
Let’s dive in for the latest round of preseason AP Top 25 projections ahead of the 2020 season.