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When Do Preseason College Football Rankings Come Out?

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Matt Wadleigh | Last updated Jan 20, 2025 11:10 PM ET

The College Football Playoff national championship game ended with No. 8 Ohio State defeating No. 7 Notre Dame, 34-23, on Monday night in Atlanta.

It ended the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff field, and it was quite the run with the Buckeyes making a marvelous journey through the bracket.

Now, everyone will begin to look ahead to the 2025 college football season.

On Monday, quite a few way-too-early top 25 rankings were released, including ones from Brett McMurphy and On3.

However, it will be quite some time until the first preseason Associated Press poll and Coaches polls are released.

We don’t know the exact date, but the AP Poll typically is released in August. Over the last five years, these are the release dates of the first AP poll of the season:

2024: August 19
2023: August 14
2022: August 15
2021: August 16
2020: August 24

Here are the dates of the first USA TODAY Coaches Poll of the past five seasons:

2024: August 5
2023: August 7
2022: August 8
2021: August 11
2020: August 6

This year's preseason AP poll had a top five of Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama and LSU, respectively.

The Coaches Poll had a top-five of Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas and Alabama.

In both versions of the 2024 preseason polls, Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia were in the top five, and Michigan (the national title winner the previous year) was in the AP poll with a high ranking.

It remains to be seen where Ohio State and Notre Dame end up, but the poll likely won't come out until the beginning of August.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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