How Accurate Are College Football Preseason Polls?

Based on last year’s predictions, not very. Husker Dan breaks it down.

Quarterback Fernando Mendoza runs 12 yards for Indiana's final touchdown against Miami in the CFP championship game in January. Neither team was higher than 10th in Husker Dan's sampling of preseason national rankings. | Grace Hollars / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

May and June are the months in which the college preseason magazines begin to appear on bookshelves across the nation. Their arrival means one thing to fans: the college football season is nearing.

As we all know, the Indiana Hoosiers went 16-0 last year to capture the first football national championship in school history.

Curt Cignetti’s team won the trophy in just his second year as the Hoosiers’ head coach. Even more amazing is that Indiana lost only two games in those two years.

That’s a 27-2 record. To give Husker fans some perspective, in 1994 and 1995, Nebraska went 25-0 and won two national championships. During the 1970 and ’71 seasons, the Huskers went 24-0-1 and nabbed another two national crowns.

For longtime Husker fans, Indiana’s 27-2 record and one national championship, while impressive, doesn’t equal Nebraska’s. What is impressive is that Indiana’s amazing success was achieved in just the first two years of Cignetti’s tenure at Indiana.

So I got to thinking, how were Indiana and Miami, the two College Football Playoff finalists, ranked in last year’s preseason polls? Did anybody list either of these teams in its top two?

Let’s find out.

Following is a list of several leading preseason polls. The first numerical rankings are their top two teams before the season began and the second is how they ranked Indiana and Miami in the preseason.

The last section is the AP’s final poll.

ESPN
Preseason top two:
1.) Texas
2.) Penn State

How Indiana and Miami were ranked in the preseason:  
17.) Indiana
10.) Miami

Lindy’s
1.) Texas
2.) Georgia
31.) Indiana
10.) Miami

Sporting News
1.) Texas
2.) Ohio State
25.) Indiana
10.) Miami

So how did Phil Steele (the guru of college football) fare?
Phil Steele
1.) Penn State
2.) Clemson
20.) Indiana
10.) Miami

What were the preseason rankings in the AP poll?

The Associated Press
1.) Texas
2.) Ohio State
19.) Indiana
10.) Miami

Based on those preseason rankings, no one came close to Indiana beating the Miami Hurricanes for the 2025 national championship.

The final AP top 10 teams on Jan. 20, 2026:
1.) Indiana
2.) Miami
3.) Ole Miss
4.) Oregon
5.) Georgia
6.) Ohio State
7.) Texas Tech
8.) Texas A&M
9.) Alabama
10.) Notre Dame.

In the case of getting it wrong about Indiana, no one (except maybe Curt Cignetti) could have predicted the kind of year Hoosier QB Fernando Mendoza was going to have. (Mendoza, a transfer from the University of California, would also finish the year hoisting the Heisman Trophy.)

And who knew Indiana’s defense would be good enough to get the Hoosiers to the pinnacle of the college football world in ’25?

The point here is not to bash the magazines for not getting things right, but to say how difficult it is to predict how college football teams will perform in any given year. The portal, NIL and revenue sharing have made it nearly impossible to get it right.

But we’ll continue to buy the mags anyway, won’t we?

Who knows? Someday, someone might get it right.

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