AUSTIN — Texas was ranked fifth in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason football poll, which was released Monday morning.
One year after being the top-ranked team in the 2025 preseason poll and failing to make the College Football Playoff despite a 9-3 regular-season record and three wins over top 10 teams, the Longhorns enter the season with probably their most talented roster in almost 20 years.
Steve Sarkisian, who has three consecutive double-digit win seasons, begins his sixth season in Austin. Texas has one of its most difficult schedules in history. The Longhorns will play seven of the preseason top 25 teams.
Ohio State, which just happens to be Texas’ Week 2 opponent in a rematch of last year’s Buckeyes win in Columbus, begins the year as the No. 1 team. OSU, which got 40 first-place votes, is followed in the top five by Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas.
Other Texas schools in the top 25 are Texas A&M (eighth), Texas Tech (12th), SMU (19th) and Houston (23rd).
The Cougars were No. 24 in the US LBM Coaches Poll released in early August. This is their first AP preseason ranking since being 24th 2022 and their highest since 2016 (15th).
“You want everything at the end of the year,” coach Willie Fritz said. “It’s a heck of a lot more important than at the beginning of the year. You also want your program to be noticed.”
The Southeastern Conference has nine ranked teams, but the Big Ten isn’t far behind with eight.
Of the top seven teams, five received first-place votes: Ohio State (40), Oregon (14), Notre Dame (6), Indiana (8) and Miami (1). Voters skipped over No. 3 Georgia and No. 5 Texas, which both fell into the top five but didn’t receive first-place votes.