Big 12 ditches preseason media football rankings: report

Big 12 athletic directors and head coaches have decided to end the conference’s preseason media football rankings starting this year, according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy.

But while the conference will forgo presenting any preseason team rankings, it will continue its preseason All-Conference Teams.

The decision comes a year after the Big 12 media rankings turned out to be as wrong as they could be, ranking Arizona State as the No. 16, and thus worst, team in the league.

That ostensibly worst team turned out to be the best, as the Sun Devils went on to win the Big 12 championship and earn a place in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.

Utah, selected as the best team in the Big 12 last preseason, stumbled to a 5-7 record with a 2-7 mark in conference play, finishing 13th in the league standings.

Indeed, every team ranked in the top-five of the Big 12 media poll finished outside the top-five of the actual standings at the end of the 2024 season.

Whether or not that lack of predictive power played any role in the Big 12 axing its preseason football rankings is unknown, but the poll is going away just the same.

In so doing, the Big 12 joins the Big Ten as the second Power Four conference to not present a media poll heading into the season.

Granted, these particular rankings never had any formal importance for teams except for some preseason talking points and bulletin board material.

Now their irrelevance has been formalized by the Big 12, leaving half the major college football conferences without a preseason media poll heading into 2025.

(McMurphy)

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