Texas is No. 1 in the AP preseason college football poll for the first time in school history as Arch Manning and the Longhorns try to follow up consecutive Playoff semifinal appearances with a national title.

The Longhorns received 25 first-place votes and 1,552 points in the rankings released Monday to edge past No. 2 Penn State in the closest preseason vote since 1998. The Nittany Lions have their best preseason ranking since they started No. 1 in 1997. Penn State received 23 first-place votes and 1,547 points.

Defending national champion Ohio State is No. 3 with 11 first-place votes. The Buckeyes host the Longhorns to open the season on Aug. 30.

Clemson is No. 4 with four first-place votes, followed by No. 5 Georgia, No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 7 Oregon, No. 8 Alabama, No. 9 LSU and No. 10 Miami. Georgia and Oregon each got one first-place vote. Overall, six teams received first-place votes — the most since seven teams did in 2016.

The Crimson Tide are ranked outside the preseason top five for the first time since 2008, when Nick Saban’s second Alabama team began the season ranked No. 24 and went on to finish sixth.

Week 1 of the college football season will feature an unprecedented three top-10 matchups, including No. 1 Texas at No. 3 Ohio State and No. 9 LSU at No. 4 Clemson on Saturday, Aug. 30, plus No. 6 Notre Dame at No. 10 Miami on Sunday, Aug. 31.

Preseason AP Top 25 for 2025

Others receiving votes: BYU 156, Utah 144, Baylor 132, Louisville 90, USC 64, Georgia Tech 63, Missouri 33, Tulane 23, Nebraska 23, UNLV 21, Toledo 13, Auburn 10, James Madison 9, Memphis 9, Florida State 8, Duke 6, Liberty 5, Navy 5, Iowa 5, TCU 4, Pittsburgh 3, Army 2, Colorado 1, Louisiana 1

Texas is the 24th school to be preseason No. 1. Oklahoma, the Longhorns’ Red River rivals, has the record with 10 appearances at No. 1 since the preseason poll started in 1950. Alabama has been preseason No. 1 nine times and Ohio State eight.

Texas is the eighth school to be preseason No. 1 while in the SEC. Last season, the Longhorns’ first in the conference after leaving the Big 12, Texas finished first in the regular season and lost in the SEC title game.  The Longhorns’ season ended in the CFP semifinals with a loss to Ohio State.

With Quinn Ewers moving on to the NFL, Manning steps into the starting job after two years of being maybe the most famous backup quarterback in the history of college football. The nephew of former NFL stars Peyton and Eli Manning was a five-star recruit out of high school who started two games last season while Ewers was out with an injury.

Expectations are high for Manning, who is the favorite to win the Heisman, according to BetMGM, and in turn for Texas, which has not won a national title since 2005. The Longhorns return much of one of the best defenses in the country, including second-team All-America linebacker Anthony Hill and Colin Simmons, who was one of the best pass rushers in the country as a freshman last season. Manning is the headliner on a reloaded offense that includes four new full-time offensive line starters and a group of young receivers being asked to step into bigger roles.

The SEC leads the way with 10 ranked teams, followed by the Big Ten with six. The Big 12 has four and the ACC three. No. 25 Boise State from the Mountain West is the only school outside the Power 4 conferences to be ranked.

How I voted

The overriding challenge of voting this year was weighing talent and continuity. Many of the most talented rosters have various degrees of uncertainty and turnover on the field and in the coaching staff. Especially at quarterback.

On Monday morning, I published a more detailed account of my process and experience as a first-time voter and former longtime AP college football writer.

One lesson from my first time doing this: With so much time to work on and research the preseason ballot, I might have over-thought it. After submission, I regretted having moved away from initial assessments on a few teams.

There is a story behind every selection, but let’s highlight a few where I’m at least three spots behind or ahead of consensus:

No. 3 Alabama (five spots higher than the poll). The Tide are coming off their worst season since 2007, Saban’s first. I get why most voters did not rush to jump back on the bandwagon, but Alabama might have the best offensive and defensive lines in the country. And Kalen DeBoer’s track record suggests Year 2 improvement is a safe bet, especially teaming up again with offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb.

No. 10 Texas A&M (nine spots higher than the poll). Did you know the Aggies have the fourth-highest ratio of blue-chip recruits on their roster at 82 percent, according to CBS Sports? Suggests a pretty talented roster. Really, nobody is truly worthy of being ranked 10th, so I’ll take a flyer on quarterback Marcel Reed and A&M.

No. 12 Oklahoma (six spots higher than the poll). The Sooners were terrible offensively last year, but I’m not sure how much that really matters. Brent Venables totally remade that unit, starting with swiping coordinator Ben Arbuckle and quarterback John Mateer from Washington State.

No. 18 Illinois (six spots lower than the poll). There was a lot of magic in last year’s 10-win season for the Illini. I had to push myself into ranking them this high and now wish I hadn’t.

No. 21 South Carolina (eight spots lower than the poll). Illinois beat the Gamecocks in a bowl to get a bump heading into this season. I’m plenty skeptical of both. Quarterback LaNorris Sellers has all the talent, but I worry that too much of South Carolina’s offense is “do something awesome, LaNorris.”

No. 24 SMU (eight spots lower than the poll). Am I overreacting to last year’s Playoff loss at Penn State? Maybe. Counterpoint: Maybe I’m actually underreacting.

What does it mean to be preseason No. 1?

What does the future hold for Texas? Preseason No. 1 teams are almost always among the nation’s best teams … but they rarely win the national title.

• In 75 seasons of preseason polls, 11 teams have started No. 1 and finished No. 1 in the AP poll. The most recent teams to be correctly called as national champions before the season are 2017 Alabama, 2004 USC, 1999 Florida State, 1993 Florida State and 1985 Oklahoma.

• Since 1965, every preseason No. 1 has finished ranked except for 2012 USC, which stumbled to 7-6.

• All 11 preseason No. 1 teams since the College Football Playoff began in 2014 have finished in the top six (Georgia was the lowest last year at No. 6), but only 2017 Alabama won the national title.

• No preseason No. 1 team has finished with a losing record. Ole Miss went 5-5- in 1964 and Notre Dame went 4-4-1 in 1950, the first year of the preseason rankings. Sixteen of 75 preseason No. 1s have lost three-plus games.

• Texas is a 2.5-point underdog on Aug. 30 at No. 3 Ohio State, per BetMGM. A preseason No. 1 team has not lost its first game since 1990, when Miami lost 28-21 at No. 16 BYU. Since then, the only time a preseason No. 1 team has opened against a top-10 opponent was 2017, when Alabama dominated No. 3 Florida State 24-7. The preseason No. 1 hasn’t opened with a single-digit win since 2014, when Florida State beat Oklahoma State 37-31.

Preseason poll to the Playoff

• All 11 College Football Playoff national champions have been ranked in the top six of the preseason AP poll. Since the BCS began in 1998, the only national champions to come from outside the top 10 were 2000 Oklahoma (No. 19), 2002 Ohio State (No. 13), 2003 LSU (No. 14, shared the title with USC), 2010 Auburn (No. 22) and 2013 Florida State (No. 11).

• Ten of the past 30 national champions began the season ranked No. 2, including Ohio State last year and Michigan in 2023.

• In the first year of the 12-team Playoff last season, Indiana, Arizona State, SMU and Boise State made the field after starting unranked.

• All 12 teams that made the Playoff last year are ranked in the preseason this year, with Tennessee (No. 24) and Boise State (No. 25) just making it in.

Highs and lows

• No. 3 Ohio State is only the fifth defending national champion since 2013 to not open the season at No. 1. Michigan was No. 9 last August, Georgia was No. 3 (en route to a second consecutive national title) in 2022, LSU was No. 6 in 2020 and Clemson was No. 5 in 2017. The Buckeyes have started in the top six in 13 consecutive seasons.

• No. 11 is Arizona State’s highest preseason ranking since it was No. 8 in 1998.

• No. 12 Illinois is ranked in the preseason poll for the first time since it was No. 20 in 2008. It’s the Illini’s highest preseason start since they were No. 11 in 1990.

• No. 13 South Carolina is ranked in the preseason for the first time since it opened at No. 9 in 2014.

• No. 16 SMU is ranked in the preseason for the first time since it was No. 3 in 1985, two years before its two-year NCAA Death Penalty ban.

• No. 20 Indiana is ranked in the preseason for only the fourth time, joining 1968 (No. 13), 1969 (No. 14) and 2021 (No. 17). It went a combined 12-20 in those three seasons, finishing unranked each time.

• No. 22 Iowa State is ranked in the preseason for the fifth time ever, joining 1978 and three years in a row from 2019-21.

• No. 23 Texas Tech is ranked in the preseason for the first time since it was No. 12 in 2008. The Red Raiders haven’t finished ranked since Mike Leach’s final season in 2009.

(Photo of Arch Manning: Tim Warner / Getty Images)