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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Georgia is No. 1 in Associated Press preseason college football poll; UW checks in at No. 10

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart holds up the Coaches’ Trophy  during the celebration of the Bulldogs going back-to-back to win the 2022 National Championship at Sanford Stadium, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023, in Athens.  (Ralph Walter / The Spokesman-Review)
By Matt Bonesteel Washington Post

Two-time defending College Football Playoff champion Georgia holds the top spot in the Associated Press preseason top 25 rankings released Monday, the first time the Bulldogs have been ranked No. 1 entering the season since 2008.

Last seen demolishing Texas Christian to win the 2022-23 national title, Georgia received 60 of 63 first-place votes from the AP’s list of journalist voters to easily earn the No. 1 spot over No. 2 Michigan, which received two first-place votes. Ohio State (one first-place vote), Alabama and LSU round out the top five.

The Bulldogs must replace steady longtime quarterback Stetson Bennett, three players selected in the first round of this year’s NFL draft, and 10 players drafted overall. But Georgia brings back 12 of the 16 defensive players who saw at least 200 snaps last season plus the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class, per 247 Sports. Combine that with a schedule that does not project to be particularly challenging, and the Bulldogs could have a chance to become the first program to win three straight national titles since Minnesota in the 1930s (Army claims three straight national championships in the 1940s, but one of those titles is disputed by Notre Dame).

Michigan’s No. 2 preseason ranking is the highest of Coach Jim Harbaugh’s tenure and the program’s highest since 1991. Harbaugh is expected to coach every game this season after reports surfaced that he faced a possible four-game suspension over NCAA violations. That punishment now will probably not take place until 2024 at the earliest. The Wolverines have advanced to the national semifinals in each of the past two years, coming short of the title game both times.

Ranked just below its Big Ten rival, Ohio State is ranked in the preseason top five for the seventh straight season and in the preseason poll for a record 35th straight year. The Buckeyes also ended all but one of those previous six seasons in the AP top five.

Alabama has been the preseason No. 1 team in seven of Coach Nick Saban’s 17 seasons, including the past two. But this year the Crimson Tide is ranked fourth, its lowest preseason ranking since 2009, when it entered the season at No. 5 (Alabama would win its first national championship under Saban that season).

USC, Penn State, Florida State, Clemson and Washington round out the top 10. It’s the lowest preseason ranking for Clemson since 2015, when the Tigers entered the season ranked 12th but won their first championship under Coach Dabo Swinney.

Texas, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Utah and Oregon come in at Nos. 11-15, followed by Kansas State, TCU, Oregon State, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Tulane (a preseason ranked team for the first time in program history) and Iowa complete the poll.

The Pac-12 conference, whose future is in doubt because of the departures of nearly its entire membership after this season, has five teams in the preseason top 25. Four of the five ranked Pac-12 teams will be playing in different conferences starting in 2024.

Since 2004, all but two national champions were ranked in the AP preseason top seven (Auburn, No. 22 in 2010, and Florida State, No. 11 in 2013, are the outliers).