College football season is around the corner, and the first Coaches Poll has arrived at USA Today. To no one’s surprise, the defending champion Ohio State Buckeyes have the top spot firmly secured, with all but two available first-place votes. No. 2 TCU and No. 3 Alabama each grabbed one first-place vote.
Ohio State takes 97 percent of first-place votes in preseason Coaches Poll Top 25
TCU and Alabama each grabs a first-place vote as well.
The Buckeyes went 14-1 in 2014, securing the No. 4 seed in the inaugural College Football Playoff and beating Alabama and Oregon en route to the program’s eighth claimed championship. It’s the third straight season that the defending champion has topped the preseason poll, following Florida State and Alabama.
Each of the five power conferences has at least one team in the top 10 -- the SEC leads the way with three, while the ACC has the lowest number with just one. Boise State is the only program from a smaller conference to make the preseason Top 25.
Here’s the full poll, with first place votes in parentheses and including Bill Connelly’s S&P+ projections:
| Coaches Poll rank | Team | S&P+ projected ranking |
| 1 | Ohio State (62) | 2 |
| 2 | TCU (1) | 18 |
| 3 | Alabama (1) | 1 |
| 4 | Baylor | 14 |
| 5 | Oregon | 4 |
| 6 | Michigan State | 9 |
| 7 | Auburn | 5 |
| 8 | Florida State | 17 |
| 9 | Georgia | 3 |
| 10 | USC | 13 |
| 11 | Notre Dame | 16 |
| 12 | Clemson | 15 |
| 13 | LSU | 8 |
| 14 | UCLA | 7 |
| 15 | Ole Miss | 6 |
| 16 | Arizona State | 24 |
| 17 | Georgia Tech | 19 |
| 18 | Wisconsin | 25 |
| 19 | Oklahoma | 10 |
| 20 | Arkansas | 12 |
| 21 | Stanford | 11 |
| 22 | Arizona | 34 |
| 23 | Missouri | 23 |
| 24 | Boise State | 27 |
| 25 | Tennessee | 20 |
Also receiving votes: Mississippi State 164; Texas A&M 149; Oklahoma State 89; Virginia Tech 70; Utah 40; Kansas State 37; Louisville 27; Nebraska 27; Minnesota 25; Penn State 20; South Carolina 18; Miami (Fla.) 16; Texas 8; Illinois 7; Duke 6; Air Force 5; Louisiana Tech 5; Marshall 4; Utah State 4; West Virginia 3; North Carolina State 3; Brigham Young 3; Florida 2; Georgia Southern 2; North Carolina 2; Maryland 1; Michigan 1; Kentucky 1; Central Florida 1; Cincinnati 1; Washington 1.
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