What happens to preseason No. 1 teams in the College Football Playoff era?

To Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, it made no difference to him or his program that the Longhorns were ranked No. 1 in the AP and Coaches Polls for the first time ever ahead of the 2025 season.

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“It really doesn’t matter,” Sarkisian said Monday. “I tell the guys exactly that. It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant to the way the season’s going to go. It’s irrelevant to the way we’re going to play. It’s irrelevant to how our opponents are are going to play. Maybe it puts a little bit bigger bullseye on us for our opponents, but the reality is we have to go do it.”

After all, as any coach would say and as Sarkisian did say: “the key to the drill is you’d like to have the No. 1 next to you at the end of the season.”

Teams of a certain quality earn that No. 1 ranking. Sure, the rise of the portal, free transfers, and NIL has depressed the talent level at the top of the sport, spreading star players to many different programs. No longer will teams be able to horde talent like Nick Saban teams of old (and Kirby Smart teams of not-that-old).

Those highly-ranked teams? They typically stay in the conversation. In the four-team College Football Playoff era, no program that earned a preseason No. 1 ranking finished the year outside of the top five. However, only one preseason No. 1 team — 2017 Alabama — finished the year as the College Football Playoff national champion.

The 12-team playoff brought a bit of a change to that trend in its first season in 2024. For the first time in the CFP era, a team that started the season ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP poll failed to finish in the top five. The Georgia Bulldogs started the season on top, but finished ranked No. 6 behind Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas, and Penn State.

That’s more evidence the era of the super team is likely over, but great teams still exist and can have year-to-year consistency. The six teams listed above who were at the top of the poll at the end of the 2024 make up six of the top seven in the 2025 preseason AP poll.

Only one team in the Playoff era started outside of the preseason AP top five and won the national championship. It was 2019 LSU, and the Tigers started the year #6 in the AP poll.

— Joe Cook (@josephcook89) August 13, 2025

What happens to preseason No. 1 teams in the CFP era? Here’s a look at who started the year No. 1, where they finished, who ended the year No. 1, and where they started.

2014

AP Preseason #1: Florida State (Finished #5)

AP Final #1: Ohio State (Started #5)

2015

AP Preseason #1: Ohio State (Finished #4)

AP Final #1: Alabama (Started #3)

2016

AP Preseason #1: Alabama (Finished #2)

AP Final #1: Clemson (Started #2)

2017

AP Preseason #1: Alabama

AP Final #1: Alabama

2018

AP Preseason #1: Alabama (Finished #2)

AP Final #1: Clemson (Started #2)

2019

AP Preseason #1: Clemson (Finished #2)

AP Final #1: LSU (Started #6)

2020

AP Preseason #1: Clemson (Finished #3)

AP Final #1: Alabama (Started #3)

2021

AP Preseason #1: Alabama (Finished #2)

AP Final #1: Georgia (Started #5)

2022

AP Preseason #1: Alabama (Finished #5)

AP Final #1: Georgia (Started #3)

2023

AP Preseason #1: Georgia (Finished #4)

AP Final #1: Michigan (Started #2)

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2024

AP Preseason #1: Georgia (Finished #6)

AP Final #1: Ohio State (Started #2)

Two fun facts

The 2012 USC Trojans were the last team to start the year No. 1 in the preseason AP Poll and finish unranked. That team was coached by Lane Kiffin.

The last team that started the year unranked before finishing No. 1? BYU was unranked (the poll only featured 20 teams) to start the 1984 season and completed a 13-0 campaign with a win over Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. The Cougars earned 38 of 60 first place votes in the final poll. Washington logged 16, and Florida received six. BYU was the only undefeated and untied team.