Grading my preseason AP Top 25 ballot: What I learned from Clemson, Indiana and other misses

I recently had my yearly performance review at The Athletic. I’m still here, so I guess it went fine.

Part of that process is a self-review. Always tricky. Like most people, my first inclination is to be critical. As coaches and athletes often say: You remember the losses more than the wins.

Ultimately, though, it’s helpful to self-evaluate.

As I head into my second year voting in the Associated Press Top 25 after years of overseeing the poll, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at last year’s preseason ballot and see where things went right and wrong.

I don’t look at my preseason Top 25 as a straight-up prediction. There is some of that in there, but I try to lean into the knowns, things I can quantify (at least a little), such as returning production and coaching continuity.

No matter how much I’d like to make it a science — we have the analytics folks like Austin Mock for that — it is every bit as much art; an educated guess, at best.

I went through last year’s preseason ballot and graded each slot on how my evaluation/projection played out. I used letter grades with no pluses or minuses and no set criteria. Generally, the closer my preseason ranking came to a team’s final ranking in the actual Top 25, the better the grade.

Something to point out: I have notes and remember my thought process for most of my votes. If I felt like I had a good process but poor results — or vice versa — my grade will reflect that.

No. 1 Texas

2025 record: 10-3
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 12
Grade: B

I fell for the Longhorns, and no doubt they were a disappointment, but by the time the season ended, they probably were better than a couple of SEC teams that made the College Football Playoff. (To be clear, Texas did not have a compelling case to make the Playoff.) I had the Longhorns in my final top 10. When your preseason No. 1 team doesn’t make a 12-team Playoff, it feels like a big miss, but not as bad as it feels.

No. 2 Penn State

2025 record: 7-6
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: D

Maybe being off about Texas doesn’t feel so bad because of what happened with Penn State? I definitely had some skepticism about following the crowd on the Nittany Lions hype at this time last year. Still, I took the plunge and got burned. Why is this not an F? Penn State had maybe the most bizarre season in the country. The Nittany Lions performed more like a top-25 team than their record indicates, with five losses by one score.

No. 3 Alabama

2025 record: 11-4
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 9
Grade: B

I was bullish on the Crimson Tide and remained so for most of the season. I rode that elephant for far too long, finally adjusting in my own final rankings, where I had Alabama at No. 12. This felt more wrong to me than it looks on paper.

No. 4 Ohio State

2025 record: 12-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 5
Grade: A

Nailed it.

No. 5 Georgia

2025 record: 12-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 6
Grade: A

Nice.

No. 6 Clemson

2025 record: 7-6
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: F

What made this an especially galling failure was that I didn’t trust myself. Now, would I have had Clemson unranked in the preseason? No, I would not have. My first instinct was placing Clemson in the 10 to 12 range, but I instead succumbed to the offseason buzz built on a good second half in a Playoff loss to Texas. And that made the miss even worse.

No. 7 Notre Dame

2025 record: 10-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 10
Grade: A

As a bonus, I also predicted Notre Dame would not make the CFP on The Audible.

No. 8 LSU

2025 record: 7-6
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: F

I think this qualifies as my worst preseason ranking and an extension of another very wrong assessment. I had way too much faith in Brian Kelly’s ability to click as the Tigers’ coach.

No. 9 Oregon

2025 record: 13-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 4
Grade: B

This could be an A, but I had more doubts last offseason about the Ducks than I should have. Still, solid work.

No. 10 Texas A&M

2025 record: 11-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 8
Grade: A

Bang!

No. 11 Michigan

2025 record: 9-4
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 21
Grade: B

While I’m grading myself a little more harshly than the result suggests with Oregon, I’m giving myself some grace with this Big Ten team. I spotted Michigan’s manageable schedule and was confident that it could stay on the fringes of the CFP race all season. In the end, I was overly bullish, but the Wolverines’ season played out pretty much as I thought.

No. 12 Oklahoma

2025 record: 10-3
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 13
Grade: A

Had it all the way.

No. 13 Kansas State

2025 record: 6-6
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: F

I’m addicted to being wrong about Avery Johnson.

No. 14 Florida

2025 record: 4-8
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: F

A good example of me getting too bogged down in being formulaic. While the Gators checked some boxes in terms of returning talent and metrics, I went into last season convinced Florida was more likely to fire coach Billy Napier than make the CFP. Yet, I still voted for the best-case scenario.

No. 15 Miami

2025 record: 13-3
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 2
Grade: C

I was lower on the Hurricanes than consensus going into the season, and it burned me. Now, I did end up on the right side of history because I never ranked Miami below Notre Dame at any point during last season. Good recovery.

No. 16 Arizona State

2025 record: 8-5
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: C

The Sun Devils were in a bucket of four teams that broke through in 2024 and had various levels of high hopes for an encore in 2025. Shorting the overachievers’ encore performance is generally a solid strategy in college football. I didn’t lean hard enough into that skepticism when assessing ASU and a few of the other teams in that bucket.

No. 17 Indiana

2025 record: 16-0
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 1
Grade: C

I’m sorry I didn’t forecast the greatest turnaround story in the history of major American sports.

No. 18 Illinois

2025 record: 9-4
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: B

I correctly ignored the Illinois-is-this-year’s-Indiana offseason narrative and took a more measured approach to the Illini. Worked out well. Illinois was the first team out of the final Top 25, but I voted the Illini No. 21 in my final ballot. I could have given myself an A.

No. 19 Utah

2025 record: 11-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 14
Grade: A

I was ahead of the curve on the Utes, who started last season unranked in the actual poll.

No. 20 Texas Tech

2025 record: 12-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 7
Grade: B

I thought I was bullish on the Red Raiders heading into last season, but not nearly enough — which is frustrating because when it came time to predict a CFP field during the preseason, I had them in.

No. 21 South Carolina

2025 record: 4-8
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: F

I so badly wanted to leave the Gamecocks out of my preseason rankings last year but was peer-pressured into squeezing them into the bottom five. Believe in yourself, kids.

No. 22 Louisville

2025 record: 9-4
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: B

I was absolutely on the right track with Louisville, but pegging the Cardinals as a CFP dark horse was ultimately too optimistic.

No. 23 Ole Miss

2025 record: 12-2
Final AP Top 25 ranking: No. 3
Grade: D

No, I didn’t see Trinidad Chambliss coming.

No. 24 SMU

2025 record: 9-4
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: B

This was fine.

No. 25 Boise State

2025 record: 9-5
Final AP Top 25 ranking: Unranked
Grade: C

The Broncos had a weird season, and this preseason ranking wasn’t all that far off from how they finished. Still, I looked at No. 25 as more of a floor than a ceiling.

Some thoughts on the teams that finished ranked after I left them unranked in the preseason:

No. 11 BYU: Like many, I nudged the Cougars out of preseason top 25 contention after quarterback Jake Retzlaff left the team in the summer. It was a mistake, but I hadn’t totally dismissed the possibility BYU would be good.

No. 15 Vanderbilt: Remember what I said about being skeptical of the encore? Yeah, I never saw 10-win Vandy coming.

No. 16 Virginia: Another team I never even considered last preseason.

No. 17 Iowa: The Hawkeyes were among the others I considered. This was no surprise to me.

No. 18 Tulane and No. 19 James Madison: Non-power conference teams generally have to prove it to get ranked. The Green Wave and Dukes did. I regret nothing.

No. 20 USC: The Trojans were the flip side of Florida. They absolutely should have been in my preseason rankings by the criteria I had used, but I made the conscious decision to hold them out and make them prove they could avoid some of the mind-numbing losses they suffered in 2024. And they did.

No. 22 Houston: I had circled the Cougars as a possible sleeper in the Big 12 heading into the season, and they exceeded those expectations.

No. 23 Navy: Definitely did not see an 11-win season coming.

No. 24 North Texas: Figured the Mean Green had a chance to be in the American Conference mix, but never expected the huge jump.

No. 25 TCU: The Horned Frogs were among the last of about 40 teams I gave at least a little thought to ranking in the last preseason.