The SEC and Big Ten Own 68% of the AP Poll

The first AP poll of 2026 does more than rank teams. It reveals where college football’s preseason attention has already pooled.

The SEC placed nine teams in the Top 25. The Big Ten placed eight. Together, the two leagues occupy 17 of 25 positions—68 percent of the entire poll—before either has played a game.

That concentration has two different faces. The Big Ten owns the ceiling: Ohio State is No. 1, Oregon is No. 2 and the conference has produced the last three national champions. The SEC owns the depth: nine ranked teams, including five in the top 10.

The Associated Press preseason report published August 17 frames it as a rare alignment. Ohio State and Oregon give the Big Ten the preseason top two for the first time in 65 years and only the second time ever, after Iowa and Ohio State began 1961 in those positions. No conference had held Nos. 1 and 2 in the preseason poll since Oklahoma and Nebraska did it for the Big Eight in 1987.

That is history. It is also an enormous allocation of benefit of the doubt.

The Big Ten has the strongest recent evidence

Ohio State received 40 of 69 first-place votes. Oregon received 14 and earned the highest preseason ranking in program history. The order reflects more than roster projections.

Michigan won the 2023 national title. Ohio State won the 2024 title. Indiana completed a 16-0 championship season in 2025. The final AP poll from January put Indiana first, Miami second, Ole Miss third, Oregon fourth and Ohio State fifth. The Big Ten’s current authority was earned in the sport’s last three postseasons.

Still, preseason No. 1 is an expectation, not an inheritance. Ohio State has held that spot nine times, tying Alabama for second-most behind Oklahoma’s 10. Since the AP began a preseason poll in 1950, only 11 teams have started and finished No. 1. The most recent was Alabama in 2017.

That gap is the useful warning label. Voters can identify a plausible champion, but they rarely identify the entire season’s path.

Indiana is the freshest proof. The Hoosiers began 2025 at No. 20 and finished No. 1. Their rise did not make the preseason poll pointless; it showed how much information the games still had to add.

The SEC’s advantage is volume

Georgia starts third, Texas fifth, Texas A&M eighth, Ole Miss ninth and Oklahoma 10th. LSU, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida complete the SEC’s nine-team bloc. Five SEC teams in the top 10 is the league’s highest preseason total there since 2013.

That creates an attention flywheel. Ranked teams play other ranked teams, producing games that receive larger audiences and heavier weekly framing. A win becomes a “ranked win.” A loss can retain value because it came against another team voters already respected.

The feedback is not imaginary, but neither is it absolute. Poll spots are re-earned every week, and an overrated team eventually runs out of protection. Yet starting position affects how early results are interpreted. No. 18 losing narrowly to No. 6 is more likely to be treated as validation than two unranked teams playing the same quality of football outside the national window.

This is why 68 percent matters even though the AP poll does not select the College Football Playoff. It is a map of initial credibility. The map shapes broadcasts, studio debates, ranked-matchup labels and the résumé vocabulary that follows teams into October.

Eight places for everyone else

After the SEC and Big Ten take 17 spots, every other conference and independent program shares eight.

Notre Dame is fourth. The Big 12 has four teams, led by No. 12 Texas Tech. The ACC has three. No Group of Six team appears at all. Ten of last season’s 12 playoff participants are ranked; the exceptions are James Madison and Tulane.

None of that proves the excluded teams are better than the included ones. It does show the uphill starting point. A team outside the two richest, most visible leagues has less margin for a quiet September because it begins with less poll capital to lose.

The distribution also sharpens the different arguments made by the Big Ten and SEC. The Big Ten can point to the sport’s last three champions and two teams at the very top. The SEC can point to the breadth of teams voters see as national contenders. One league claims recent postseason supremacy; the other claims the deepest weekly test.

Both can be true. Neither should become immune to new evidence.

Treat the poll as a hypothesis

The fairest reading of the preseason Top 25 is not that 68 percent of the country’s best teams must reside in two conferences. It is that voters currently believe they do.

That belief has a rational foundation in recruiting, roster investment, coaching resources and recent playoff results. It also carries the normal uncertainty of quarterback transitions, transfer integration, injuries and schedule variance. Oregon’s highest-ever starting rank will look prescient if it handles that uncertainty. It will be trivia if the Ducks do not.

Ohio State, Oregon and the SEC’s nine begin with the largest share of attention. The games now determine whether concentration becomes confirmation—or the next preseason assumption the season dismantles.