Where Michigan Football Ranks in National Polls Heading Into Week 1

The preseason rankings have been released. With less than two weeks until the regular season, where do the Michigan Wolverines sit across the board?

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Preseason polls are often inaccurate. The squads seemingly poised to dominate in August can falter in a million different ways over the course of a season, and voters have no shortage of avenues towards making fools of themselves when they submit their ballots prior to any actual football being played. 

They are also often predictable. Last year’s juggernauts? Top of the rankings you go. Scrappy Group of Six longshots? Get content in the ‘recieving votes’ section. Of course, the NIL era concentration of talent hasn’t helped things, and, this year, every team ranked in the preseason belongs to a Power 4 conference (yes, Notre Dame is an independent, but the point remains the same). 

Any yet and yet and yet.

Preseason polls scratch an itch for college football fans. They get the blood flowing again, reorient expectations, and remind us that the season is ever so close - Look! I can rank everybody! 

BREAKING: The Preseason AP Poll dropped 🚨

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There is something nourishing about a preseason poll, something so refreshingly familiar and brand new again that makes these most uninformed of assessments of quality irresistible to college football fans emerging from the long slumber of the summer. 

It’s almost go time, Wolverine nation! Let’s dive into the goodies waiting for us in the AP and Coaches preseason college football polls and find out exactly where Michigan falls in these two preliminary rankings. 

AP Top 25

The Wolverines take the 16th slot of the preseason AP poll, receiving 718 votes to earn that designation. 

A couple things to note.

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

First, Michigan leap five spots from where they ended the 2025 season, reflecting the revamped confidence in the program driven by Kyle Whittingham’s hire, a bevy of impact transfers and freshman, and the anticipated improvement of Bryce Underwood’s level of play. 

Second, the Wolverines are the fifth ranked Big Ten squad in the poll, trailing in-conference foes Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, and USC. Washington and Penn State also immediately follow Michigan in the rankings, though the voting gap separating the Wolverines from the Huskies is substantial. 

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

For the first time since 1961, two Big Ten teams sit atop the preseason AP Poll, a feat made more impressive by the fact that the defending champion Hoosiers are bewilderingly ranked sixth and claim neither of those two top spots. For Michigan, the challenge will be to reign in the upper tier of the Big Ten, to close the gap between themselves and the eager title contenders who share their conference. Based off the preseason AP Poll, that will be no easy chore. 

AFCA Coaches Poll

The surveyed selection of college football coaches agrees with the AP and also rank Michigan 16th overall in their preseason poll. In fact, the coaches poll assessed the good guys in Ann Arbor in a nearly identical manner as the AP, allocating 719 votes to the Wolverines, a smidge more than the 718 allocated by the AP.