Big Ten on Top, SEC in Question

The 2026 college football season has a clear early favorite. Ohio State claimed the top spot in the AP preseason poll Sunday, with the Big Ten asserting itself across the top ten. The more striking number, though, belongs to Clemson — unranked for the first time in fifteen years, a marker of how much the sport's landscape has shifted since the Tigers' last dynasty run.

The SEC, meanwhile, enters the season with a different kind of attention. Quarterback competitions at Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and LSU remain unresolved, which means four programs with legitimate conference ambitions head into fall camp without a settled answer at the most important position on the field. That uncertainty will define the league's early weeks more than any preseason ranking.

Elsewhere, Ole Miss secured two key roster additions through an overnight NIL push, arriving at No. 9 in the polls under first-year head coach Pete Golding with some late-summer momentum behind them. Oklahoma absorbed a setback when starting center Jake Maikkula left Saturday's scrimmage injured, though a return timeline of four to six weeks keeps him in play for the season. And the Walter Camp watch list, released Sunday, gave the broader preseason portrait its individual layer — fifty players worth tracking as opening week approaches.