The official top 25 of the college football preseason is here. The Coaches Poll has dropped, and it unsurprisingly has Texas and Ohio State at the top. Perhaps a little bit more surprising is that Ohio State is good enough to be second but is not number one despite winning it all last year.
It also won't come as a surprise that PFF has its own top 25 rankings, and theirs disagrees with the Coaches Poll. It doesn't just put Ohio State on top, though. It also drops Texas all the way to third overall behind Oregon, a team that landed all the way at seven in the Coaches Poll.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are the defending champions who have done well to offset the sheer volume of talent they lost on both sides of the ball (which is typical for title-winning teams in any college sport). They do have a question mark at quarterback, but PFF really loves Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith, saying they're the two best players in the sport.
Texas has a loaded roster led by Arch Manning, the expected Heisman winner and eventual number one overall pick. That's why the Coaches Poll has them ranked first, but PFF isn't quite convinced. Of course, the stunner here is Oregon moving all the way up from seventh to second.
Regardless, both Texas and Ohio State are at or near the top in most preseason polls. However, after Week 1, they won't be. They each have the unenviable task of playing each other that week, and only one can win and stay as high as they are in the rankings.