Comparing The Preseason Polls. Where Do The Agree & Disagree?

The preseason AP Poll released today, marking the last of the major polls to debut before the 2023 college football season kicks off at the end of the month. I thought it would be fun to compare where the Coaches and AP polls agree, as well as our Heartland Sports poll.

All three polls agree on who the top to teams in the nation are. It’s at #3 where we start to see a difference with the AP, and myself, going with Ohio State and the coaches paying tribute to Nick Saban and Alabama. The AP and Coaches polls had agreements on twelve different rankings (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, & 22). The coaches left Iowa out of their poll while the AP omitted Texas Tech.

I actually had more in common with the AP Poll than I did the Coaches Poll…and I’m okay with that. The AP and I agreed on eight different rankings (1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 15, 18, & 24) while I had seven rankings in common with the coaches (1, 2, 12, 15, 16, 17, & 18).

I omitted both Iowa and Texas A&M from my poll and included UCLA instead. Ironically, I had Oklahoma ranked the lowest among the three polls.

2023 Preseason Top 25 Polls

Rank	Coaches	AP	Heartland Sports
1.	Georgia	Georgia	Georgia
2.	Michigan	Michigan	Michigan
3.	Alabama	Ohio State	Ohio State
4.	Ohio State	Alabama	Alabama
5.	LSU	LSU	USC
6.	USC	USC	Penn State
7.	Penn State	Penn State	LSU
8.	Florida State	Florida State	Clemson
9.	Clemson	Clemson	Florida State
10.	Tennessee	Washington	Washington
11.	Washington	Texas	Tennessee
12.	Texas	Tennessee	Texas
13.	Notre Dame	Notre Dame	Utah
14.	Utah	Utah	Notre Dame
15.	Oregon	Oregon	Oregon
16.	TCU	Kansas State	TCU
17.	Kansas State	TCU	Kansas State
18.	Oregon State	Oregon State	Oregon State
19.	Oklahoma	Wisconsin	North Carolina
20.	North Carolina	Oklahoma	Wisconsin
21.	Wisconsin	North Carolina	Ole Miss
22.	Ole Miss	Ole Miss	Texas Tech
23.	Tulane	Texas A&M	Oklahoma
24.	Texas Tech	Tulane	Tulane
25	Texas A&M	Iowa	UCLA

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