"College football polls are meaningless." 

It's the go-to argument in August – a polarizing topic ahead of the release of the AP Preseason Poll on Monday. The "College Football Camus" is determined to extract the meaning out of the number next to the name and the nature of the AP Poll itself and what it means for college football.  

Let's not make this an existential thing. Trust the numbers instead. 

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Do the research. Sporting News looked at the AP Preseason Poll from 2020-24. Then, we compared it to the final AP Poll in those five seasons. Then, we looked at 22 schools who appeared in those polls in at least four of the five seasons to find some real meaning behind those rankings. 

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How accurate is AP Preseason Poll vs. Final AP Top 25? 

The AP Preseason Poll has a 52% accuracy rating with teams that start in the AP Preseason Poll and finish in the Final AP Poll over the past five seasons. That means it has correctly picked 65 of 125 teams from start to finish. 

Last year, the AP Top 25 had 12 teams in its Preseason Poll finish in the Final AP Top 25 – a 48% success rate. The highest mark in the last five years was 68% (17 of 25) in 2023, and the lowest was 40% (10 of 25) in 2022.  

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AP Preseason Top 25 teams vs. final AP Top 25 (2020-24)       

YEAR	HIT	MISS	% RIGHT
2020	15	10	60%
2021	11	14	44%
2022	10	15	40%
2023	17	8	68%
2024	12	13	48%

It would be easy to say, "See, the preseason poll doesn't mean a damn thing" and spawn into how it unfairly influences the College Football Playoff rankings and skews the playoff field. Yet when you narrow the focus to the top 10 teams, it becomes a different narrative. 

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How accurate is the AP Preseason Poll with top-10 teams? 

The AP Preseason Poll has a 58% (29 of 50) success rate with teams that are in the top 10 in both the AP Preseason Poll and the top 10 in the Final AP Poll over the past five seasons. A total of 76% percent (38 of 50) of teams picked in the top 10 in the AP Preseason Poll stayed in the Final AP Poll.

AP Preseason Top 10 teams vs. final AP Top 10 (2020-24)

YEAR	HIT	MISS	%
2020	6	4	60%
2021	6	4	60%
2022	5	5	70%
2023	6	4	60%
2024	6	4	60%

Now, look at the preseason top-10 teams that failed to make the final top 10 against the top-10 teams that were in the Final AP Poll top 10.                          

PRESEASON POLL MISS TOP 10	FINAL POLL IN TOP 10
No. 6 LSU, No. 7 Penn State, No. 8 Florida, No. 9 Oregon	No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 8 Cincinnati, No. 9 Iowa State, No. 10 Northwestern
No. 3 Clemson, No. 6 Texas A&M, No. 7 Iowa State, No. 10 North Carolina	No. 3 Michigan, No. 5 Baylor, No. 7 Oklahoma State, No. 9 Michigan State
No. 4 Clemson, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 6 Texas A&M, No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 10 Baylor	No. 2 TCU, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 7 Penn State, No. 8 Washington, No. 9 Tulane
No. 5 LSU, No. 6 USC, No. 7 Penn State, No. 9 Clemson	No. 3 Texas, No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 Missouri, No. 9 Ole Miss
No. 5 Alabama, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 9 Michigan, No. 10 Florida State	No. 7 Arizona State, No. 8 Boise State, No. 9 Tennessee, No. 10 Indiana

-Teams in bold were ranked in the AP Preseason Top 25

Nine teams that fell out of the preseason top 10 remained ranked in the final AP Poll. Seven ranked teams that started outside the top 10 in the preseason poll moved into the top 10. That is not a huge disparity. 

A total of 12 teams fell from the top 10 in the preseason top 10 to unranked in the Final AP Poll (24 percent). A total of 14 teams were unranked in the preseason poll but finished in the top 10 in the Final AP Poll. Again, not a huge difference. 

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Which teams are most reliable in AP Top 25? 

Sporting News examined the cumulative differential for every school in the AP Poll for the last five years. That is the sum of the difference between where a school started in the AP Preseason Poll and where it finished in the final AP Poll in those five seasons. 

Notre Dame, for example, started No. 7 and finished No. 2 last season – so their differential would be +5 for 2024. Over the past five years, here is what Notre Dame looks like in the AP Poll: 

YEAR	SCHOOL	PRE	FINAL	DIFF.
2020	Notre Dame	10	5	5
2024	Notre Dame	7	2	5
2021	Notre Dame	9	8	1
2023	Notre Dame	13	14	-1
2022	Notre Dame	5	18	-13

When you total those five years, the Irish's cumulative differential is -3. 

Only five schools were in the Preseason Poll and Final AP Poll each of the last five seasons. They are the true blue-bloods in the sport right now. 

Here is a look at those five schools and their cumulative differential from 2020-24 in the AP Preseason Poll and final AP Poll. 

SCHOOL	5-YEAR DIFF.	AVG PER YEAR
Notre Dame	-3	-0.6
Georgia	-5	-1
Ohio State	-10	-2
Alabama	-16	-3.2
Clemson	-33	-6.6

Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama and Notre Dame have four of the top five records in the FBS since 2020 – so this is hardly a surprise. It might come as a surprise, however, that Notre Dame – a team that has the stigma of being overhyped in the polls – was almost pegged exactly right over a five-year span. Clemson was the most overrated team in this five-year stretch. 

What about the next tier? Here is a look at the schools that appeared in at least one of the AP Preseason Poll or final AP Poll in each of the last five seasons: 

We made a slight tweak to the formula for these schools. LSU started No. 13 last season and finished outside the top 25. 

So we subtract 13 from their ranking (12 spots in the top 25 plus one spot that accounts for being unranked) to get a differential of -13. On the flip side, Michigan started unranked in 2023 but finished No. 3 (22 spots in the Top 25 plus one spot that accounts for being ranked) for a differential of +23. 

Which schools were closest to their preseason ranking at the end of the year? 

SCHOOL	5-YEAR DIFF	AVG. PER YEAR
Texas	-1	-0.2
Oklahoma State	-1	-0.2
Michigan	-2	-0.4
Penn State	10	2
Utah	-21	-4.2
Oregon	-23	-4.6
Oklahoma	-31	-6.2
USC	-36	-7.2
Texas A&M	-40	-8
LSU	-40	-8

Michigan – the other school with a top-five record since 2020 – has a positive differential on a cumulative basis despite some wild outcomes. The Wolverines finished unranked in 2020 and 2024 and began the 2021 season outside the AP Preseason Top 25. Texas – another school that has the label of being overhyped – has also been forecasted correctly on average. 

LSU and Texas A&M have not. The Tigers have finished unranked in three of the last five seasons. Texas A&M started in the AP Preseason Top 25 each of the past four seasons and finished unranked. USC also has struggled to live up to expectations. 

There is one more grouping of schools. Here is a look at schools who have been in either the AP Preseason Poll or final AP Poll in four of the last five seasons:             

SCHOOL	4-YEAR DIFF.	AVG
Iowa	3	0.75
NC State	-4	-1
Miami, Fla.	-17	-4.25
Ole Miss	18	4.5
Tennnesse	20	5
BYU	34	8.5
Wisconsin	-43	-10.75

BYU began the season unranked in 2020, 2021 and 2024. The Cougars have been the most overachieving team in this tier. Iowa predictably is almost identical to its average. Wisconsin started the season in the AP Preseason Top 25 every year from 2020-23 but finished unranked. 

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Verdict: Does the AP Preseason Poll matter? 

What does that question even mean? Of course they do. 

Last year, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 8 Boise State and No. 10 Indiana were not ranked to start the season and made the CFP. Did their lack of a preseason ranking matter? Nobody saw Arizona State or Indiana coming. Boise State should have been more visible with Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty. 

Those schools were the most scrutinized schools in the CFP because of the teams that were left out. 

Alabama fell from No. 5 in the AP Preseason Poll to No. 17 in the final poll, and Ole Miss fell from No. 6 to No. 11 in the Final AP Poll. The pollsters were not that far off, but the Crimson Tide and Rebels fell off enough to stay outside the CFP. There is no SEC bias here – even if that is a topic for a separate column. That did not influence the final CFP rankings. 

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The polls are meant to be fun, and those wild swings add to it. Four schools have a single season differential of +20 or more. Michigan (+23) and Baylor (+21) hit that mark in 2021, and TCU (+24) and Tennessee (+20) hit that mark in 2022. Four schools have a single-season differential of -20 or more. LSU (2020), Texas A&M (2021, 2022) and USC (2023) had a differential of -20 in those receptive seasons. So basically, the chance to be really wrong about a team that falls out is the same as a team we didn't see coming. 

There is always meaning in the polls, too. We see who does not live up to expectations. Anybody can say that does not matter. When you look at those numbers, however, they matter. They always will.