Where Alabama Football Ranks in Preseason AP Top 25 Poll

The preseason AP Top 25 for the 2025-26 season has made landfall, and for the first time since 2008, none of the top five teams are the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Alabama is the No. 8 team in Monday's rankings, joining fellow SEC institutions Texas (1), Georgia (5) and LSU (9) in the top 10. All four schools are legitimate national title contenders. The Crimson Tide faces two of the other three this fall.

Some of the curiosity where Alabama is concerned was how poll voters would treat the team after 2024, when the program failed to record 10 wins or more for the first time since 2007. The 9-4 finish included losses in two of the last three games and no College Football Playoff berth for the first time since 2022 (despite the field having expanded to 12 teams).

The Crimson Tide began last season, the first year of the Kalen DeBoer era, as the No. 5-ranked team in the preseason poll. Alabama ascended to the top spot following its dramatic late-September home victory against Georgia, before a subsequent loss at Vanderbilt the next week sent it down to No. 7.

Alabama found itself ranked as the nation's preseason No. 1 most recently in 2022. That year, it held the top spot for three (nonconsecutive) weeks: the first two contests of the regular season and an Oct. 8 game against Texas A&M in Tuscaloosa. In 2023 during Nick Saban's final season, the program never had the AP Poll's highest position.

Florida State, Alabama's opponent in the season opener on Aug. 30, was expectedly not in Monday's rankings. The Seminoles started 2024 at No. 10, spiraling out of the ranks by mid-September after a dismal 0-2 start which eventually gave way to a 2-10 campaign. A win on home field at the end of this month would propel Mike Norvell's squad into the fold once more.

The full list of this preseason's AP-ranked teams, in order, can be found below. Three other 2025 Crimson Tide opponents, South Carolina (13), Oklahoma (18) and Tennessee (24) feature. Once the midseason College Football Playoff rankings begin to be released, the AP's will be phased out.

AP Top 25 College Football Preseason Poll

1. Texas (25)
2. Penn State (23)
3. Ohio State (11)
4. Clemson (4)
5. Georgia (1)
6. Notre Dame
7. Oregon (1)
8. Alabama
9. LSU
10. Miami (Fla.)
11. Arizona State
12. Illinois
13. South Carolina
14. Michigan
15. Florida
16. SMU
17. Kansas State
18. Oklahoma
19. Texas A&M
20. Indiana
21. Ole Miss
22. Iowa State
23. Texas Tech
24. Tennessee
25. Boise State