According to the AP Poll top 25 rankings, how did all the preseason rankings stack up since the poll came out before the 1950 season?
How have the narratives for the college football seasons been shaped since 1950? The preseason polls and rankings.
The AP poll began ranking teams throughout the season and declared a national champion starting in 1936, but it didn’t crank up the preseason version until 1950 – the same year the UPI Coaches Poll was created.
It’s still a bizarre concept to this day – much like our grandchildren won’t believe there was a time when a playoff system was based on the whims of a small panel of judges – but the polls and rankings used to mean everything in determining a national champion.
The preseason rankings all but cemented things in stone. If you started out in the top two, you were going to be in the mix for the national title as long as you didn’t lose. If you were outside of the top two to start the season – and, sometimes, if you weren’t No. 1 – you needed help.
The preseason polls still set the expectations at the start of every season, and the AP version remains the one that gets the most publicity.
Since 1950, how did the AP media members perceive the top teams before the seasons? Which schools got the most respect in the AP preseason college football polls?
AP Poll, All-Time Rankings: Final
AP Top Programs of All-Time | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s
1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s
Coaches Poll All-Time Final Rankings | Preseason Rankings
AP Preseason Poll All-Time Rankings
1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s
AP: Preseason College Football Top 25 Rankings 1950 to 2021
CFN devised a scoring system giving every AP-ranked preseason No. 1 team from 1950 to 2021 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.
1 Oklahoma 1227
2 Ohio State 1195
3 Alabama 1030
4 USC 979
5 Notre…
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