Texas, Ohio State, Penn State & Georgia Top Preseason FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll

Texas dominated the preseason poll with 27 of 57 first place votes, marking the Longhorns' fifth all-time appearance at No. 1 in the poll and the fifth straight year an SEC team claimed the top spot in the 2025 preseason poll.

Texas opens the season on the road at Ohio State at 12 noon ET Saturday, Aug. 30, inside Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. The game will broadcast as part of FOX's Big Noon Kickoff, and ESPN's College GameDay will broadcast live from the Ohio State University campus. College GameDay will air for three hours from 8-11 a.m. CT, hosted by Rece Davis, Lee Corso, Desmond Howard, Pat McAffee, Nick Saban, Kirk Herbstreit and other ESPN personalities. It will be the final show for longtime ESPN personality Lee Corso as he is set to retire following Week 1 of the 2025 season.

Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian (Texas Athletics Photo)

Defending national champion Ohio State finished second in the poll with 11 first place votes and 53 points behind Texas. The Buckeyes have appeared in the poll 148 times since 2014, second most behind only Alabama's 151 appearances.

Penn State finished third in the poll with 11 first place votes. The No. 3 ranking marks the highest-ever preseason ranking for the Nittany Lions.

After being ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll in each of the last two years, Georgia starts this season at No. 4, marking the lowest preseason ranking for the Bulldogs since being ranked No. 5 in the 2021 preseason poll.

The No. 8 ranking for Alabama is the lowest preseason ranking for the Crimson Tide in the history of the poll. Alabama is the only team to appear in the poll each week since the poll's inception in 2014, a span of 151 weeks.

ABOUT THE FWAA-NFF SUPER 16 POLL:

The FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll was established at the conclusion of the 2013 season by long-time partners, the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the National Football Foundation (NFF). Voters rank the top 16 teams in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, and the results will be released every Sunday of the 2025 season; the individual votes of all members will also be made public. The first regular season poll will be released on Tuesday, Sept. 2 (to account for Labor Day games), and the final poll will be released Sunday, Dec. 7. The pollsters consist of FWAA writers and College Football Hall of Famers who were selected to create a balanced-geographical perspective. The poll utilizes a computer program designed by Sports Systems, a TicketManager company, to compile the rankings and the Cody Kellner Points Index to publish the individual votes.