Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma take up the top three spots, respectively, with Florida State rounding out the top four; Michigan State (No. 12) is the only team from last year’s playoff who didn’t make the top four.
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Alabama, long suspected to be the No. 1 team at the start of the season, led all teams with 33 first-place votes, and 1,469 points total. Clemson had the second-most first-place votes with 16, but still tallied 1,443 total points, only 26 fewer than the Tide.
A total of seven teams received first-place votes in the preseason poll: Those teams, apart from Alabama and Clemson, are Oklahoma (4), FSU (5), LSU (1), Ohio State (1) and Michigan (1).
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The Southeastern Conference led all conferences in number of ranked teams, with six, and number of top-10 teams, with three. Those are Alabama (No. 1), LSU (No. 5), Tennessee (No. 9), Ole Miss (No. 11), Georgia (No. 18) and Florida (No. 25). The Pac-12 came in second with five teams ranked, while the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC each had four teams represented. Notre Dame, an independent, came in at No. 10, while Houston, the only Group of 5 team, came in ranked at No. 15.
Here are the full rankings:
No. 1: Alabama No. 2: Clemson No. 3: Oklahoma No. 4: Florida State No. 5: LSU No. 6: Ohio State No. 7: Michigan No. 8: Stanford No. 9: Tennessee No. 10: Notre Dame No. 11: Ole Miss No. 12: Michigan State No. 13: TCU No. 14: Washington No. 15: Houston No. 16: UCLA No. 17: Iowa No. 18: Georgia No. 19: Louisville No. 20: USC No. 21: Oklahoma State No. 22: North Carolina No. 23: Baylor No. 24: Oregon No. 25: Florida
Others receiving votes: Miami 159, Texas A&M 81, Utah 74, Washington St. 68, Boise St. 49, San Diego St. 46, Wisconsin 42, Auburn 22, Pittsburgh 15, Arkansas 14, Texas 12, Nebraska 11, Navy 8, Northwestern 5, W. Kentucky 4, South Florida 2, Toledo 2.
