In the 2023 college football season, two-time defending champion Georgia was the AP Poll's preseason No. 1 team for the first time in the College Football Playoff era, though the Bulldogs ended up missing out on the playoffs by coming in sixth in the final rankings. That meant the preseason No. 1 missed the four-team CFP for the second year in a row (Alabama in 2022).
"But how much do preseason polls actually matter?" you might ask. We analyzed the data and it turns out fans of the AP preseason No. 1 team should still be pretty excited despite consecutive semifinal misses — especially as the CFP bracket expands to 12 teams.
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From the 2014 season through 2023, the No. 1 team in the AP preseason poll made the playoff seven times — 2015 preseason No. 1 Ohio State was the only team from that group to not make the playoff before 2022 Alabama and 2023 Georgia. And even those three teams still finished ranked in the top seven — an impressive number that would mean good things as the CFP field expands to 12 teams starting with the 2024 season.
Here's how the preseason AP poll correlates to the final College Football Playoff poll in the CFP era.
The categories below indicate for each preseason ranking in the AP poll, the teams' average ranking in the final CFP poll, the best finish, the worst finish, the number of times a team has been not ranked in the final CFP poll and the number of times a team with that AP preseason ranking made the College Football Playoff.
| AP POLL | AVG. fINAL RANKING* | BEST FINAL RANKING | WORST FINAL RANKING | NR | CFP APPS. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3.3 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2 | 5.8 | 1 | 16 | 0 | 6 |
| 3 | 7.9 | 1 | NR | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | 12.6 | 4 | NR | 2 | 2 |
| 5 | 7.9 | 1 | 21 | 0 | 5 |
| 6 | 18.6 | 1 | NR | 4 | 2 |
| 7 | 13.3 | 2 | NR | 2 | 2 |
| 8 | 12.4 | 2 | NR | 1 | 2 |
| 9 | 21.4 | 5 | NR | 4 | 0 |
| 10 | 17.1 | 2 | NR | 4 | 2 |
| 11 | 19.6 | 3 | NR | 5 | 1 |
| 12 | 19.5 | 1 | NR | 5 | 2 |
| 13 | 23.4 | 5 | NR | 5 | 0 |
| 14 | 16.3 | 4 | NR | 2 | 1 |
| 15 | 21.6 | 3 | NR | 5 | 1 |
| 16 | 26.4 | 12 | NR | 7 | 0 |
| 17 | 25.5 | 12 | NR | 7 | 0 |
| 18 | 20.4 | 9 | NR | 4 | 0 |
| 19 | 22 | 4 | NR | 6 | 1 |
| 20 | 20.6 | 8 | NR | 5 | 0 |
| 21 | 22.8 | 6 | NR | 6 | 0 |
| 22 | 27.6 | 11 | NR | 8 | 0 |
| 23 | 25.8 | 10 | NR | 7 | 0 |
| 24 | 24 | 11 | NR | 6 | 0 |
| 25 | 24.8 | 11 | NR | 6 | 0 |
*Note: When calculating average finish in the CFP poll for teams that were ranked in the preseason AP poll, we assigned a rank value of 30 for any team that wasn't ranked in the final CFP poll.
Through a sample size of 10 years, recent history says it's best to be ranked No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 or No. 5 in the preseason AP poll. The preseason No. 4 team made the College Football Playoff for the first time in 2019 when Oklahoma earned the fourth playoff spot. The preseason No. 4 squad made the four-team CFP field twice in 10 years, compared with seven times for No. 1, six instances for No. 2, four instances for No. 3 and five occurrences for No. 5
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Teams ranked No. 1 through No. 8 in the preseason AP poll combined for 30 of the 40 CFP appearances in the four-team era. In 2021, Michigan became the first team unranked in the preseason poll to make the College Football Playoff; the Wolverines received just 12 preseason votes, placing them 32nd to start the season. TCU then followed that up by going from unranked in the 2022 preseason to No. 3 in the last CFP poll.
The first 10 years of the playoff also tell us that, on average, one team from outside the top 10 of the preseason AP poll will make the CFP three out of four years. Texas was the most recent team to do that, coming from No. 11 to rank No. 3 in the final CFP poll (and preseason No. 10 Washington ended up No. 2). Earlier, TCU rose from unranked to the 2022 playoffs. Notre Dame was that team in the 2018 season, having been ranked No. 12 in the preseason. Clemson (No. 12 in 2015), Washington (No. 14 in 2016), Georgia (No. 15 in 2017) and Oklahoma (No. 19 in 2015) have also proven it's possible to climb into national title contention from a lower ranking in the preseason poll.
Of course, now that we're moving from the four-team to the 12-team College Football Playoff era, you don't need to rise as far as you used to if you dreamed of playing for a national championship.
