Ohio State begins the season atop the AP preseason college football poll, a rare No. 1 return

The Associated Press preseason college football poll has Ohio State penciled in at No. 1 for the start of the year, the latest affirmation of the Buckeyes’ standing as the team to beat before the first kickoff. The announcement comes on the heels of Ohio State being voted No. 1 in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll, making it a back-to-back top placement across two major preseason looks.

The AP preseason selection is especially notable for Ohio State because it marks the first time the program will begin a season as the No. 1 team in the AP rankings since the beginning of the 2015 season, according to the Yahoo Sports report on the poll release. That 2015 start sits just outside a longer stretch in which Ohio State has often entered years as one of the national favorites, but not as the universal preseason headline in the AP’s first look.

For context, the AP preseason poll is voted on by a national panel of writers. Voters rank teams based on their perception of returning strength, recent performance, coaching continuity, and the matchup landscape ahead. Unlike in-season rankings, the preseason version is not a reaction to fall camp results or early-week games. It is a forward-looking vote that tends to crystallize expectations early and then gets tested quickly as conference play begins.

Ohio State’s No. 1 position also deepens what has become a familiar offseason challenge for perennial contenders: preseason status raises the bar for everything that follows. Once a team is projected as the best in the sport at kickoff, the program is measured against that label week after week, even though the poll itself provides no guarantees about how the season will turn out.

The Buckeyes’ top billing did not arrive in isolation, either. The same report notes that Ohio State “doubled down” after being the preseason No. 1 in the US LBM Coaches Poll earlier in the summer. That sequence matters because it shows the Buckeyes were not simply favored by one group with one set of priorities. When both writers and coaches place the same team at the top this early, it typically indicates broad agreement that the roster has both immediate competitiveness and a workable path to the postseason.

Still, preseason polling can be unforgiving, and it does not account for every variable that decides a season. College football outcomes are often shaped by injury luck, the pace of early development for key positions, and how quickly new starters absorb the system. There is also the reality of conference dynamics, where one game can swing the tone of a championship conversation even if it happens before the national narrative fully settles.

What to watch next is whether Ohio State can hold up under the preseason No. 1 spotlight once the schedule begins. With the AP’s ranking now set at the top, early results will matter not just for Ohio State’s own résumé, but for how voters calibrate the rest of the field after the first head-to-head tests.

For the program, beginning No. 1 is a public statement about expectations, but the season’s substance will come from performance in August-to-November football, not in polling. The AP preseason poll is the starting gun, not the finish line, and Ohio State’s job now is to make the early confidence look like it was earned rather than merely predicted.