In recent years, preseason polls in college football have caused quite a few fans to lose their marbles, so if you’re one of the many who fall in this camp, you may want to take a mental health day on Monday, because that’s the day the preseason AP Poll drops.
While the release of the AP Top-25 should be a reason to celebrate – since it signals the arrival of college football – it’s had the opposite effect lately.
Most of the consternation comes from fans who believe their favorite team or conference is being under-ranked or under-represented, so if that’s your particular gripe, fear not.
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Many championship-winning teams over the past quarter century have found themselves ranked outside the top-10 of the inaugural AP Poll of any given season, and today I wanted to look at five notable examples from the turn of the 21st century.
These are teams who defied the odds and turned what many thought would be a respectable season into an unforgettable one.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
2025 Indiana Hoosiers (Preseason #20)
We start this list off with a familiar face, as the most recent national champion is a prime example of shattering preseason expectations.
Coming into last season, the idea was that the Indiana Hoosiers were able to catch a ton of teams by surprise while navigating an extremely friendly schedule in 2024 en route to a shocking Playoff appearance.
Not many fans or media pundits were predicting a repeat of 2024 for Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers, and they were right, in a way.
Not only did the Hoosiers make it back to the College Football Playoff, they won the whole damn thing, doing so while playing an infinitely harder schedule.
The Hoosiers’ preseason ranking took many things into account: undermanned roster (at least as far as recruiting rankings are concerned), tougher schedule, and more, but they didn’t know how much of a wizard Coach Cig would be.
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A guy like Fernando Mendoza deserves special mention, too.
The Hoosiers’ signal caller went from a little-known transfer from Cal to a Heisman Trophy winner and a number one overall NFL Draft pick.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to point and laugh at the pollsters for not ranking Indiana higher, but it made the victory even sweeter for Hoosier fans everywhere.
2013 Florida State Seminoles (Preseason #11)
This one might feel like a bit of a reach, given that they were literally just outside the top ten to start the season, but the 2013 Florida State Seminoles ended up being one of the defining teams of the 2010s and the last ever BCS champion, so the fact they started the season at 11 makes them an even more mythical story.
The Noles had won the ACC Championship as well as the Orange Bowl just a season prior, but they also lost a ton of veteran leadership to the NFL, including quarterback EJ Manuel and two first-round NFL Draft picks on defense.
Head coach Jimbo Fisher recruited well enough to offset those personnel losses, but no one knew how all these new players would gel, particularly redshirt freshman signal caller Jameis Winston.
An undefeated season for the Noles and a Heisman Trophy-winning campaign for Winston proved every single one of the doubters wrong, as FSU ran roughshod over the ACC en route to its third national title in program history.
When I say roughshod, I mean it, too.
FSU slaughtered pretty much everyone on its schedule, including beating all four ranked conference opponents on its schedule by a combined score of 200-35.
Pure dominance.
And to think, this dream season probably started with Seminole fans lamenting the AP Poll for giving their team the shaft.
2000 Oklahoma Sooners (Preseason #19)
Fascinatingly enough, there are a few key parallels that can be drawn between the first national champion of the 21st century and the most recent.
The 2000 Oklahoma Sooners were only one spot higher than the 2025 Indiana Hoosiers, both were led by second-year head coaches, and neither had been ranked in the preseason polls for quite some time prior to this season.
At the turn of the millenium, the Sooners had fallen on tough times, new head coach Bob Stoops hadn’t done much to inspire hope in the folks of Norman following a 7-5 season in 1999.
Despite this, Oklahoma was given a preseason ranking for the first time in five years, and although it wasn’t exactly a symbol of confidence from the pollsters, it signified progress.
Stoops showed everyone that he and his Sooners may have been a little ahead of schedule, though, with a perfect 13-0 season and a national championship over a Florida State team that had lost only one game in its previous 24 contests.
Though Stoops was known for his defensive prowess, the offense showed out for most of Oklahoma’s biggest games, including hanging 63 points on its rival, the 11th ranked Texas Longhorns.
Not bad for a team no one thought would do much more than make another repeat appearance to the Insight Bowl.
2002 Ohio State Buckeyes (Preseason #13)
Hey look, it’s another team with a second-year head coach coming off a 7-5 campaign the year prior.
Other than a win over rival Michigan the year prior, coach Jim Tressel and the 2002 Buckeyes didn’t have a lot to be excited about coming into the season.
At least, that’s what the general public thought.
Behind the bruising running of precocious freshman tailback Maurice Clarette and a suffocating defense, Ohio State didn’t allow more than 17 points throughout the entirety of its conference slate, which included a 14-9 strangling of a top-ten Michigan team.
The real feat of accomplishment, though, came in the national championship game, as the Buckeyes defeated a Miami team many football historians believe is one of the best in the history of the sport.
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Against all odds, the 11.5-point underdogs toppled the Hurricanes and their staggering 17 first-round NFL Draft picks in a thrilling (and somewhat controversial) double-overtime thriller in the desert.
Many fans remember this Buckeyes team as the one that toppled a budding Miami dynasty, and it all started with a double-digit preseason ranking.
2010 Auburn Tigers (Preseason #22)
If there is one shining example of a team shattering preseason expectations, it’s the 2010 Auburn Tigers.
Aside from the brilliance of quarterback Cam Newton, this team had no business winning anything of significance in the 2010 campaign.
Coach Gene Chizik was in year two of a very questionable hire, one that was roundly booed by Auburn fans from the time he exited the plane in eastern Alabama due to his 5-19 record at his previous stop of Iowa State.
An 8-5 record in year one did little to quell those grumblings, and the recruiting was stagnating behind other SEC rivals like Alabama and LSU.
It looked like the Tigers were headed for another eight or nine-win season with more questions than answers until Clark Kent opened his shirt to reveal his “SuperCam” costume.
I can’t put into words how magical Newton was throughout the 2010 season, but to put into perspective just how much of the burden he shouldered for Auburn during its championship run, the Tigers led the SEC in scoring offense despite not having a single skill player other than Newton take a single regular season snap in the NFL.
Those kind of mind-bending facts are what make this season so special for Auburn, but it also proves the preseason pollsters right in a way.
Who could have seen the kind of carry-job coming that Newton pulled off in 2010?
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The Tigers beat six ranked teams that year en route to a perfect 14-0 season in which Newton captured a Heisman and Auburn hoisted a crystal football.
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What makes Newton even more special is the fact that both the Tigers and Chizik immediately crashed back down to Earth the moment the star signal caller bolted for the NFL.
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Auburn would plummet back to a pedestrian 8-5 record in 2011, followed by a 3-9 campaign the next year that saw Chizik hit the unemployment line.
Truly a team that captured lightning in a bottle.
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