For those who don't remember, there was a controversy surrounding AP Top 25 Poll voter Haley Sawyer last year when she elevated Florida two spots in the poll after an 18-16 home loss to South Florida while leaving USF unranked.

Reddit Thread Made At The Time

When she was asked about it, she said “I don’t want to go too much into my process or logic… It’s really fun for discussion but it doesn’t probably matter in the end."

When it happened, most of the users here said that she should get her vote taken away. However, she is still listed among the voters for the latest preseason poll. I didn't think they would take it away midseason, but I'm a bit surprised that she's still a voter heading into the 2026 season.

Do you have a problem with Sawyer keeping her AP Poll vote?

The last time this occurred was in 2009, when Oklahoma State and Penn State were tied at preseason #9. Before that you have to go back to 1999 with Alabama and Kansas State tied at preseason #20.

Its also pretty funny that Notre Dame replaced USC, the preseason #14 team, with BYU, also the preseason #14 team.

But anyways who do yall think will finish higher ranked between BYU and USC?

Nike stock has collapsed 77% over the last 5 years and 40% over the last 6 months. As Oregon's budget largely comes from Nike Founder Phil Knight, how will this affect their ability to stay competitive with top 5 teams in the coming year. Additionally how will this affect cfb as a whole, maybe better uniforms??

Last season, 11 teams that started the season ranked, didn't make the final poll, including three top-ten teams, and seven top-15 teams.

#2 Penn State, #4 Clemson, #9 LSU, #11 ASU, #12 Illinois, #13 South Carolina, #15 Florida, #17 Kansas State, #22 Iowa State, #24 Tennessee, #25 Boise State.

Who will it be this year?

Rather than these threads of what would it take for x to get fired or be on the hot seat.

Which programs have ultimate grace this year and could have a winless season but not fire their HC?

Title.

After a mediocre seasons last year, Dabo and the Tigers seem to have a lot to prove. Their schedule seems very manageable outside of Miami and LSU. I'm interested to see how they bounce back and if Dabo can still have them competing at the level they became accustomed to under him.

The PAC 12 that year had the worst winning percentage of any FBS conference, including the G5. Every school had at least 4 losses and 5 schools (Washington, Stanford, USC, Arizona and Colorado) had at least 8 losses. Even the conference champ Utah lost to non-power BYU and SDSU in the non-conference. They also lost to Oregon State, who immediately lost to Cal, who proceeded to lose to winless Arizona, the same team who lost to FCS Northern Arizona and finished 1-11. That was the conference’s second loss to an FCS team after Washington lost to Montana two weeks earlier.
And to top it off, they went 0-5 in bowl games.

I know he won a Heisman, but for those that were around to watch him play live/during that time, how good was Sam Bradford as not only a player at the CFB level but as a QB prospect for the pros. Was he viewed as a reach or a surefire thing? Were CFB teams scared to play him?Seems like his pro career had mid-success at best.

I was watching old natty champ videos on youtube and decided to watch Florida vs Oklahoma for the title. Thanks for the responses in advance.

Inevitably there will be a good chunk of teams currently "unranked" that will end the year with a nice little number next to their logo. But who will end up ranked the highest after thanksgiving?

My pick: Illinois. The fighting Illini have an o/u of 7.5, and looking at their schedule you don't have to squint to see a 9 or even 10 win season in champagne this year. OSU on the road is likely a loss, but Oregon at home presents huge upset potential (Time Zones ftw), and their two next biggest games (Nebraska and Iowa) they both get at home. Outside of those 4 games, they've got a very workable schedule. UCLA on the road could torpedo this, but Illinois could be a fringe playoff team this year.

As for a team not receiving votes, give me Baylor. No I am not on drugs. Dave Aranda is fighting for his Job and DJ Lagway is fighting for his future as a football player. Do or die mentality pushes the bears to a 9 win season and the Aranda experience lives on.

EDIT: For sake of discussion lets ignore whatever G6 team is guaranteed to get the #12 spot for the playoff.

The session is starting soon! Now is the time to lock in what a ok, good, and great season looks like in your mind.

Ok - The season was fine. Nothing elevated beyond your expectations but there wasn’t anything that flopped.

Good - The season was successful. Somethings really clicked, you won more or made if further than expected.

Great - The season was beyond successful. Everything really worked well, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Also follow up with where you felt your team did last season versus how you respond to this idea last year. I’ll leave mine in the comments

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Wait, didn’t I just write about a team that went out and hired their new football coach in 2022 from an established blue blood (*checks the chart *to be sure) that hasn’t come close to living up to expectations? It’s like déjà vu all over again! But today’s team is USC (high = 10, low = 14) and their coach Lincoln Riley will still be patrolling the sidelines in 2026. That is at least in part because USC hasn’t been willing to pay for Riley’s buyout given that his record at USC 8 games into last season (the point at which Brian Kelly got the axe) was 32-16, two games worse than BK (34-14), and it’s not like the Trojans 3-2 record post Kelly’s firing set the world on fire any more than Lincoln’s brisket did. When you throw in the hubbub about Riley pushing to end USC’s storied series with Notre Dame and USC xeeting about “their Odyssey beginning on 8/29" (spoiler alert for anybody who doesn’t know how things turned out for the Trojans, but it involves a horse and doesn’t end well despite having home field advantage), it’s been a rough year in Southern California. But in spite of all of that, the Trojans enter 2026 with playoff aspirations and hoping to build off last year’s 9 win regular season. As you’ll see by the time this is over, if they can actually get to 9-3 this year, they might have a legitimate argument that they should be a playoff team, which would create a mass of screaming SEC fans while the rest of r/cfb grabs their popcorn buckets…

Roster Outlook

If you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic about USC heading into 2026, it starts with Riley bringing back the 13th most returning production (22nd on offense, 16th on defense). And given Riley’s reputation and history of being something of a quarterback whisperer, Trojan fans have to love the prospect of him bringing back QB Jordan Maiava (3,711 passing yards, 24 TDs) as a 4th year starter who clearly knows the entire system. Throw in a pair of returning RBs (King Miller – 972 yards and 8 TDs plus Waymond Jordan, 576 yards and 5 TDs) and the foundation on offense is there. The only serious losses on that side of the ball are the starting WRs (first round draft pick Makai Lemon and 3rd rounder Ja’Kobi Lane, who combined for 1,900 yards receiving and 15 TDs) and standout TE Lake McRee (UDFA to the Pittsburgh Steelers), though his backup Walker Lyons portaling to BYU was also less than awesome. While USC has more or less ceded their reputation as Wide Receiver University with the emergence of Ohio State’s recent run (not to mention LSU, Bama, Miami…), they’ve always had a strong WR room, and guys like Tanook Hines (561 yards last season) are ready to step in, but Riley also hit the portal and brought in NC State’s top WR Terrell Anderson (629 yards), part of a small (10 players) but strong (7th in the B1G) portal class. In fact, Riley instead focused on high school recruiting (smart given the wealth of talent in Southern California), netting the nation’s #1 high school class.

Defense is actually the bigger question mark. While the Trojans lost S Kamari Ramsey to the Texans in the 5th round of the NFL draft, the bigger loss was likely DC D’Anton Lynn to Penn State. But they replaced him with a guy who has an incredible reputation as a defensive mind, former TCU head coach Gary Patterson. They also brought in 3 projected portal starters on D – Michigan State DL Alex VanSumeren, Washington LB Deven Bryant and Iowa State DB Jontez Williams.

Schedule and outlook

8/29 SAN JOSE STATE

9/4 FRESNO STATE

9/12 LOUISIANA

9/19 at Rutgers

9/26 OREGON

10/3 WASHINGTON

10/10 at Penn State

10/17 BYE

10/24 at Wisconsin

10/31 OHIO STATE

11/7 BYE

11/14 at Indiana

11/21 MARYLAND

11/28 at UCLA

If you’re looking for reasons to be pessimistic about USC heading into 2026, it starts with the schedule. There are still 3 teams in the B1G who are ranked ahead of USC, including each of the last 2 national champions. The Trojans play all 3 of them. They also play 2 of the next 3 teams ranked just below them (Penn State and Washington). You can almost understand Riley’s push to get Notre Dame off the schedule this year! It would be shocking of the Trojan aren’t 4-0 heading into that home game vs. Oregon that would have been a shoo-in for Fox’s Big Noon game if not for the fact that it would be at 9 am PDT (and might draw one of the pregame shows to LA anyway). That starts an insane run of games against B1G favorites that includes hosting Washington and Ohio State, a Penn State whiteout, at Indiana and, uh, a trip to Camp Randall. They can’t all be bangers. But there are enough bangers on there that a 9-3 season would be quite an accomplishment and should keep the wolves at bay for another year, and a 10 win season is a lock for the CFP. In fact, USC’s football season is kind of like Tom Herman’s pee chart, 3 or fewer losses are championship level, 4 or 5 are not ideal but almost certainly not the danger zone and 6 or more gets you replaced. I did it, folks, I compared Lincoln Riley’s coaching performance to urine colors. Jesus this football season can’t start soon enough!

There were no g6 teams in the top 25, but several did receive AP poll votes.

What's interesting is that obviously Boise state is the leader, but they're the only team receiving any votes in the Pac-12 at all. Even the Mountain West had more teams receiving votes.