College football’s list season is here ahead of a landmark college football season.
It’s the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Massive realignment has changed conferences. Yet the time-honored tradition of preseason top 25 lists remains unchanged.
Sporting News released its Preseason Top 25 on Wednesday. Our next move is to look around at other preseason publications to find a consensus Top 25. We achieved that by looking at seven more recent top 25 lists. That includes 247Sports.com, The Athletic, Athlon, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and USA Today. We will update this as more preseason rankings come out this summer. It is a better indicator of what the preseason AP Top 25 might look like in August.
Georgia is a unanimous No. 1 across those sites. The Bulldogs are looking for a third national championship in four seasons under Kirby Smart.
Ohio State received seven second-place across those eight sites. The Buckeyes had a monumental offseason under coach Ryan Day in the transfer portal, and will be heavily favored to win the new 18-team Big Ten.
Texas – which made its first College Football Playoff appearance last season – is No. 3 The Longhorns have improved under fourth-year coach Steve Sarkisian and are now making the move to the SEC. Oregon and Ole Miss rounded out the top five.
What Michigan, Alabama and Washington, the CFP teams from last season that had coaching changes? The Crimson Tide are No. 6, the Wolverines are No. 9, and the Huskies, well, that is one of the surprises of this list.
We used an inverse scoring method (awarding 25 points to a No. 1 selection, 24 for a No. 2 selection, all the way down to one point for a No. 25 selection) to determine the score for each school.
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Composite top 25 preseason college football rankings
A look at a composite Preseason Top 25 college football ranking across 11 major websites. Here is each school with the total points scored and their high and low ranking:
| RANK | TEAM | POINTS | HIGH | LOW |
| 1 | Georgia | 200 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Ohio State | 191 | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | Texas | 183 | 2 | 4 |
| 4 | Oregon | 177 | 3 | 5 |
| 5 | Ole Miss | 161 | 5 | 6 |
| 6 | Alabama | 160 | 4 | 9 |
| 7 | Notre Dame | 150 | 5 | 10 |
| 8 | Missouri | 137 | 7 | 12 |
| 9 | Michigan | 132 | 7 | 12 |
| 10 | Penn State | 115 | 8 | 17 |
| 11 | Florida State | 112 | 7 | 20 |
| 12 | Utah | 106 | 8 | 18 |
| 13 | LSU | 95 | 10 | NR |
| 14 | Tennessee | 93 | 12 | 17 |
| 15 | Clemson | 87 | 10 | 22 |
| 16 | Oklahoma | 84 | 8 | 19 |
| 17 | Arizona | 55 | 11 | NR |
| 18(t) | Oklahoma State | 56 | 11 | 25 |
| 18(t) | Kansas State | 56 | 15 | NR |
| 20 | NC State | 47 | 12 | 24 |
| 21 | Kansas | 42 | 17 | 23 |
| 22 | Miami | 21 | 14 | NR |
| 23 | USC | 20 | 21 | NR |
| 24 | Louisville | 18 | 18 | NR |
| 25 | Texas A&M | 13 | 19 | NR |
Others receiving votes: Washington 13, Virginia Tech 11, Iowa 7, SMU 4, West Virginia 4, Boise State 2, Memphis 1
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Composite Top 25 rankings by site
A look at those Preseason College Football Top 25 rankings shook out by the following sites: Sporting News, 247Sports.com, The Athletic, Athlon, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.
| SCHOOL | SN | 24/7 | T-ATH | ATHLON | CBS | ESPN | SI | USA |
| Georgia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Ohio State | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Texas | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Oregon | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Notre Dame | 5 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| Ole Miss | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
| Florida State | 7 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 20 | 11 | 10 | 15 |
| Michigan | 8 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 11 |
| Alabama | 9 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 5 |
| LSU | 10 | 13 | NR | 11 | 10 | 14 | 16 | 13 |
| Missouri | 11 | 8 | 12 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| Penn State | 12 | 9 | 17 | 8 | 9 | 13 | 9 | 16 |
| Tennessee | 13 | 12 | 16 | 13 | 16 | 15 | 13 | 17 |
| Clemson | 14 | 16 | 22 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 15 | 10 |
| Utah | 15 | 18 | 8 | 15 | 11 | 9 | 14 | 12 |
| Kansas State | 16 | NR | 15 | 17 | 19 | 17 | 21 | 21 |
| Arizona | 17 | NR | 13 | 20 | 15 | 20 | 11 | 20 |
| Oklahoma | 18 | 15 | 19 | 16 | 13 | 18 | 17 | 8 |
| Oklahoma State | 19 | 23 | 11 | 18 | 25 | 19 | 19 | 18 |
| Louisville | 20 | 25 | 18 | 25 | NR | NR | 22 | NR |
| USC | 21 | 21 | NR | 23 | NR | 25 | 23 | 22 |
| Washington | 22 | NR | NR | NR | 18 | NR | 25 | NR |
| Kansas | 23 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 21 | 22 | 18 | 19 |
| NC State | 24 | 20 | 21 | 24 | 24 | 12 | 20 | 14 |
| Texas A&M | 25 | 19 | 23 | 22 | 23 | NR | NR | NR |
| Miami | NR | 14 | 14 | 19 | 17 | 24 | NR | NR |
| SMU | NR | NR | NR | NR | 22 | NR | NR | NR |
| Iowa | NR | NR | 24 | NR | NR | 23 | NR | 24 |
| Virginia Tech | NR | 24 | 25 | NR | NR | 21 | NR | 23 |
| West Virginia | NR | 22 | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR |
| Memphis | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | 25 |
| Boise State | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | 24 | NR |
