Here's my thought when it comes to polls: The only one written in ink is the last one. During the season, each poll is written in pencil, designed to be erased and written over as new data pours in.
Preseason polls are written in crayon.
During the year, it's difficult to rank teams in a logically consistent manner from spot to spot, week to week based solely on what teams have done on the field. I'm not a fan of substituting recruiting rankings and hypothetical Vegas lines for hard-and-fast football data. That's why I hate the CFP Tuesday night ranking shows so much: the Powers That Be behind the scenes set the selection committee up to fail by asking them to do the impossible. If you disagree, I'd love to see you put out your own top 25 for the entire country to see, and then have said rankings withstand the scrutiny of a million eyeballs. In a sport with so few data points as college football, at some point everyone's criteria boils down to "I just think Team X is better than Team Y."
That's what's freeing about preseason polls. There is no data, and so your only criteria is "I just think Team X is better than Team Y." Vibes only, baby.
As a voter in the National Football Foundation-Football Writers Association of America's Super 16 poll, I think it's only fair to publish my own preseason top 16.
So, if you hate these rankings, keep two things in mind. One, they're likely to change wildly after Week 1, and then again after Week 2, Week 3, and so on. Two, you hate them only slightly less than I do.
16. Florida: I know where they finished a year ago, and I don't care. Last year was an aberration lightyears beyond Jon Sumrall's control. Florida's new Head Gator kept the players he needed to keep, and bringing Aaron Philo along from Georgia Tech was a strong endorsement by offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner considering he easily could have left him in Atlanta.
15. Louisville: Jeff Brohm has finished between 8-5 and 10-4 each of the past five seasons -- a nice accomplishment regardless, and even more impressive considering the first two happened at Purdue. Running back Isaac Brown finished second in the nation in yards per carry among all players with at least 75 carries. Pairing him with Ohio State transfer Lincoln Kienholz at quarterback will give the Cardinals one of the most dynamic backfields in the country.
14. SMU: Kevin Jennings highlights would be popping all over social media if he'd transferred to LSU, Indiana or Miami. He stayed at SMU, though, so you probably hadn't seen them. A high school state champion, Jennings took over the starting role deep into the 2023 season, and the Mustangs feel confident enough about what's to come that they launched a Heisman Trophy campaign around him.
13. BYU: I really wanted to push BYU higher, with the Cougars returning Bear Bachmeier for a full offseason, and the changes that happened at Texas Tech and Utah. But I couldn't get past the collective 63-14 score against the Red Raiders from their two games last season. The Cougars avoid Tech in the regular season, but let's see it against top-level competition first.
12. Texas A&M: Kicking off our run of SEC teams, the Aggies will have to reload after tying a program record with 10 draft picks, and do so against an SEC schedule not as favorable as last year's.
11. Oklahoma: The Oklahoma tight end room might be the most improved individual unit in college football from 2025 to '26. Combined with the returning experience on the offensive line, OU's offense should be more than the "hope to avoid a turnover while we hunt for Isaiah Setegna in space" attack it devolved into last November and December.
10. Texas Tech: Brendan Sorsby's departure turned the temperature down in Lubbock, and also changed the expectations. A team that had Final Four ambitions will now set its sights upon repeating as Big 12 champions and then everything afterward would be found money. Considering everything that happened in June, another Big 12 championship under these circumstances would be 93 percent as exciting as winning a national title.
9. LSU: Putting $50 million in a blender doesn't produce a championship team overnight. Intrinsically, we all know this. Realistically, no one cares.
8. Miami: The defending national runners-up will get better at quarterback in exchanging Carson Beck for Darian Mensah, but you don't get better as a team in losing Rueben Bain, Ahkeem Mesidor, and Francis Mauigoa.
7. Ole Miss: Dabo Swinney aside, the history of promoting interim head coaches to their first full-time position is not kind. Pete Golding's performance at SEC media days had me reassess my long-term opinion on the Rebels. In the short term, Ole Miss returns arguably the best quarterback in college football, arguably the best running back in college football, and inarguably the best backfield tandem in college football.
6. Georgia: Without a doubt the most confounding team to rank in my opinion. What am I supposed to make of a program that's won two straight SEC championships but also bowed out in two straight quarterfinals? The Bulldogs have lacked explosiveness in the wide receiver room for two years now, evidenced by them falling from fourth in yards per play in 2023 to 71st last season.
5. Indiana: Just about everyone else has Indiana at No. 6. Not us. That's right, folks: We're brave enough to take one step further on the branch than the masses. So much depends on quarterback transfer Josh Hoover, whom Curt Cignetti plans to surround with "his two new best friends: great defense and a really good run game."
4. Ohio State: Ultimate respect to Ryan Day's machine, but the thought here is you can't lose 25 draft picks in two years -- including four top-36 picks off of last year's team -- without skipping at least half a beat.
3. Oregon: Dan Lanning's reputation hasn't seemed to take a dent despite losing to conference rivals 41-21 and 56-22 in the last two CFPs. That's the story of his tenure thus far: 1-6 against teams that would go on to play for that season's national title, and 47-2 against everyone else. This team should be perhaps his best yet at quarterback, receiver, and on the lines.
2. Texas: Other than linebacker and perhaps safety, this team is better across the board than the group that started last year at No. 1. There are questions about head coach and quarterback, which, fair. And the schedule is arguably the most difficult in the country. But find me a better roster.
1. Notre Dame: The Irish have been my preseason No. 1 since May. This team was capable of playing for a national championship last year, they bring back more than any other contender from last year's team and, while this isn't an official criteria here, their schedule sets up extremely well to make a run.