Eight preseason college football favorites no longer in AP top 25 rankings

As they do every year, debates swirled around college football about the relevance or irrelevance of preseason top 25 rankings, and looking over the landscape in the second month of the 2025 season, the irrelevant camp appears to have a good argument.

That argument has always been pretty straightforward: since no teams have actually played any football yet, how could AP voters possibly judge them objectively enough to rank them against each other?

Now, after watching plenty of football, especially two of the most shocking results over the past weekend, the reputation of preseason rankings took another big hit.

Two previously top 10 ranked teams fell out of the poll completely after getting upset by unranked competition, and to date a total of eight teams, or 32 percent of the AP preseason rankings, are no longer ranked.

Top 25 voters didn’t have a consensus early on, and were decidedly split in their first preseason ballot when it came to the No. 1 team, with Texas just edging out Penn State in the first-place vote tally.

Pollsters gave the Longhorns 25 of those votes and the Nittany Lions were right behind with 22, but now six weeks later, neither of those decisions look terribly insightful.

Turns out, they were wrong on both counts. But that’s not all they were wrong about.

No. 1 Texas

Eight preseason college football favorites no longer in AP top 25 rankings — Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Arch Manning got most of the preseason hype, and now he’s taking almost all of the in-season heat. As he should, given the surprisingly low caliber of his play, marked by poor decisions, questionable mechanics, and inconsistent accuracy.

But the Longhorns’ offensive line, featuring four new blockers coming in, has not been anywhere near to the level it’s had to, the run game is not there, and this defense, which boasted apparently elite pass rushers, has not played up to that potential.

The loss at Ohio State in the opener was somewhat defensible given the quality of the opponent, but the offense didn’t look great even against the cupcakes, and a loss at unranked Florida sealed the deal for Texas to fall out of the rankings at 3-2.

No. 2 Penn State

The blotch on James Franklin’s otherwise-respectable record at Penn State was that he couldn’t win the big game, a narrative that was once again reinforced when his team dropped a double-overtime decision against No. 6 Oregon in a Whiteout Game.

A bump in the road, to be sure, but the train veered off the tracks last Saturday after a shocking defeat against then-winless UCLA, one of college football’s worst overall performing teams, but which made mincemeat of the Nittany Lions’ defense.

Arguably one of the worst defeats in Penn State history, it revealed once again how far the program remains from national championship contention, a surprise given the experience it returned especially on offense, but which still just isn’t getting what it should be at the quarterback position.

No. 4 Clemson

The reigning ACC champion and the near-consensus betting favorite to make it two straight, Clemson was billed as a national championship contender, especially given the return of Cade Klubnik, the quarterback coming off a career year throwing the ball.

But since a loss against LSU at home in the opener, then needing to make a comeback against Troy, and then losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse, those hopes evaporated, vindicating the program’s critics following its first-round exit from the playoff in 2024.

That offense, which ranks 98th in FBS in scoring, didn’t score more than 21 points in any of its three-straight losses, and only got back in the win column after pantsing Bill Belichick’s hapless disaster at North Carolina last week.

No. 13 South Carolina

The fears around the Gamecocks in the preseason were that too many personnel losses on that brilliant defense and the departure of key playmakers at running back and receiver would leave LaNorris Sellers with a bare cupboard to make another run in 2025.

That didn’t keep AP voters from putting South Carolina in the top 15, a decision that quickly unraveled after a two-game losing skid in SEC play where the offense scored 27 combined points against Vanderbilt and Missouri.

Sellers leads college football’s 92nd ranked scoring offense and is getting nothing from the ground game, which places 122nd among 136 FBS teams not even averaging 100 yards per game and posting 2.9 yards per carry.

Upcoming games against five-straight opponents that are currently ranked could deliver the coup de grace on the Gamecocks’ star-crossed season.

No. 15 Florida

Coming off a midseason disaster last fall that surprisingly turned into a very strong finish, including wins over LSU and Ole Miss that ended both those teams’ playoff hopes, it appeared Billy Napier had saved his job and was about to turn the corner.

Then came a three-game losing streak that started at home against then-unranked USF followed by road losses against LSU and Miami, throwing that confidence out the window and once again raising questions around offensive execution and in-game coaching strategy on Napier’s part.

A win over 9th ranked Texas last weekend is a morale-booster for the Gators, but it still doesn’t completely fix an offense that scored 23 combined points in those losses.

No. 16 SMU

The reigning ACC runner-up coming off a historic College Football Playoff appearance, the Mustangs’ season was quickly foiled in Week 2 after a loss against Baylor that dropped them from the rankings and they haven’t been back after a 3-2 start.

SMU ranks 104th in the country in rushing production and 75th in scoring defense. Winnable games lie ahead for SMU, but there’s an uphill climb to regain AP voters’ confidence after it didn’t even get votes last week.

No. 17 Kansas State

Dublin is apparently cursed for college football teams playing there in Week 0. Last year, it was reigning ACC champion Florida State that went to Eire, lost, and then went 2-10. This year, it’s Kansas State, a presumptive Big 12 title favorite now at 2-4.

Following a three-point loss to Iowa State in Ireland, the Wildcats needed a late score to edge out North Dakota by 3 points, then lost 3 of their next 4 games, careening well out of reach of that Big 12 title and now just struggling to make a bowl game.

No. 25 Boise State

Eight preseason college football teams that fell out of AP top 25 rankings — Michael Caterina-Imagn Images

Coming off a monster season as Mountain West champions and emerging as the Group of Five selection to appear in the College Football Playoff, there was optimism for the Broncos, but also concern after the departure of all-star running back Ashton Jeanty.

Those fears looked to be justified after Boise State was trounced in its first game of the season, on the road against USF in a 31-7 upset, a result so surprising that AP voters didn’t even give it any votes the next week, and after a 28-7 loss at Notre Dame, they won’t be getting any more votes anytime soon.