Ohio State and Oregon are 1-2 in the AP preseason Top 25, SEC leads conferences with 9 ranked teams

Ohio State and Oregon were 1-2 in The Associated Press Top 25 released Monday, giving the Big Ten Conference the top two teams in the preseason rankings for the first time in 65 years and just the second time ever.

The Buckeyes received 40 first-place votes and Oregon received 14 in voting by 69 media members who cover college football.

Ohio State will go into a season No. 1 for the ninth time, and first since 2015. The Buckeyes are now tied with Alabama for second-most preseason No. 1 rankings behind Oklahoma's 10.

Oregon has its highest preseason ranking in program history after having opened No. 3 four times.

Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas round out the top five. Defending national champion Indiana starts at No. 6 and is followed by Miami, Texas A&M, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Notre Dame received six first-place votes, Indiana got eight and Miami one.

This is the first year a conference has held down the top two spots in the preseason poll since Oklahoma and Nebraska of the Big Eight were 1-2 in 1987.

The last time the Big Ten had the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the preseason was 1961, when Iowa and Ohio State topped the poll. The Hawkeyes lost four of their last five games after a 4-0 start and finished that season unranked. The Buckeyes went 8-0-1 and ended the season No. 2 behind unbeaten Alabama.

The Big Ten has won three straight College Football Playoff championships (Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana) and will be going for an unprecedented fourth straight national title. This is the fourth consecutive year the Big Ten has had two of the top three teams in the preseason rankings.

The Southeastern Conference leads all conferences with nine teams in the preseason Top 25, marking the third straight year it has had at least that many. Five of the top 10 teams are from the SEC for the first time since 2013.

Four Big 12 teams are ranked, with conference champion Texas Tech the highest at No. 12. The Atlantic Coast Conference has three ranked teams, with the Hurricanes joined by No. 19 SMU and No. 24 Louisville. There are no Group of Six schools in the Top 25.

The offense is loaded. Heisman Trophy finalist Julian Sayin was the most accurate passer in the nation by a wide margin last season, Jeremiah Smith leads the nation in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns over the last two years and Bo Jackson is coming off a 1,000-yard rushing season as a freshman.

There is little concern about the defense even though eight starters must be replaced for a second straight year. At least six transfers are projected to start or play major roles.

Ohio State will get tested early and often. The Buckeyes visit Texas on Sept. 12 and five of their nine conference games are against preseason ranked teams, including at Indiana and against Oregon at home.

The Buckeyes have ended a season No. 1 in the AP poll six times (1942, 1954, 1968, 2002, 2014, 2024).

The beat goes on for Kirby Smart's Georgia Bulldogs. They're in the preseason top five for the ninth straight year. The two-time defending SEC champion Bulldogs are favored to play in a sixth straight conference title game and appear in the CFP for the sixth time in 10 years.

Texas, the preseason No. 1 last year, opens in the top five for the third straight year. No. 8 Texas A&M is in the preseason top 10 for the first time since it was No. 6 in 2022, the year that marked the beginning of the end for coach Jimbo Fisher.

Pete Golding's first full season as Mississippi head coach starts with the No. 9 Rebels in the preseason top 10 for the second time in three years and third time since 1970. No. 10 Oklahoma is in the preseason top 10 for the first time since 2022, when it was in the Big 12.

Indiana is the seventh returning national champion in 40 years, and second in three years, to be ranked outside the top five in the preseason (Michigan went into the 2024 season ranked No. 9 after winning the national title).

The Hoosiers became the first team in the modern era to go 16-0, and they return lots of talent and signed a top-10 transfer class. The move from Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 NFL draft pick Fernando Mendoza to TCU transfer Josh Hoover at quarterback apparently put doubts in the minds of voters.

— Ohio State will try to become the 12th team to start and finish No. 1 since the AP preseason poll debuted in 1950. The last team to do it was Alabama in 2017.

— Notre Dame has its highest preseason ranking since it was No. 2 in 2006. The Fighting Irish, who have a Heisman candidate in quarterback CJ Carr, bring a 10-game winning streak into the season and are still smarting from being left out of the playoff.

— Lane Kiffin's first LSU team is No. 11 after finishing 7-6 and unranked under Brian Kelly and Frank Wilson.

— Ten of the 12 CFP teams last season are ranked. The two that aren't are James Madison and Tulane from the Group of Six.

— No. 23 Houston has its first preseason ranking in four years and third since 1991.

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FILE - Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman shakes hands with his players as they come off the field after scoring a touchdown against Arkansas during an NCAA college football game Sept. 27, 2025, in Fayetteville, Ark. (AP Photo/Michael Woods, File)

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (AP) — Thunderstorms, heavy rain and flash flooding continued to threaten a swath of the U.S. from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic Monday, extending a deadly stretch of unsettled weather.

The National Weather Service said repeated rounds of heavy rain and thunderstorms would continue for one more day before a cold front sweeps the weather pattern off the East Coast on Tuesday. In the meantime, much of West Virginia, southeast Ohio and northeast Kentucky were under a flood watch through Monday evening, with high water lingering from previous storms increasing the possibility of flash flooding.

Elsewhere, hot weather posed more of a problem, particularly across the South, Southeast and Southwest. The weather service issued extreme heat warnings for portions of Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada and California.

In Indiana, where days of storms and flooding left at least seven people dead, floodwaters receded in Indianapolis’ White River and rains eased in other parts of the state Sunday. But a flood warning remained in effect Monday morning for part of Randolph County in east central Indiana, where thunderstorms had dropped between 1 and 2 inches of rain by 8 a.m., and residents of half a dozen counties were urged to stay off the roads except for essential travel.

“While we have seen encouraging trends, the work is far from over,” said Jacob Spence, director of the Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency in Indianapolis, where city officials on Sunday launched a website to support affected residents.

South of Indianapolis, officials in Madison Township said firefighters and others rescued 10 people from their homes Sunday night. Others had to be rescued from their cars after attempting to drive through flooded roadways.

“This remains an active and potentially dangerous situation,” the fire department said in a social media post. “We cannot stress this enough: DO NOT DRIVE THROUGH FLOOD WATERS.”

A 4-year-old boy, three men and three women were among those who had died since the storms that began Aug. 11, said Liz Woods, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security.

Also, among the seven victims was a 31-year-old cyclist found dead early Sunday in a hole that opened up on a washed-out road in Henry County, east of Indianapolis. Henry County Coroner Brian Clark said the man, James Briar, appears to have gone around a barricade and fallen into the collapsed road.

Heavy rains hammered Indiana over the past week, causing rivers to crest and setting records as roads and bridges were seriously damaged or washed out entirely by the rushing waters.

More than 106,000 utility customers statewide remained without power as of Monday morning, down from a peak of around 300,000, according to the online utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

The drenching rains and destructive flooding were among the impacts of severe storms that have wreaked havoc across the Midwest and beyond in recent days. Tornadoes, heavy rains and flash flooding brought serious damage to communities from Illinois to western Pennsylvania.

The National Weather Service forecasts heavy rain and thunderstorms across the upper Ohio Valley to the central Appalachians, with the possibility of severe storms late Monday across eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.

Scott Conrad, left, Joseph Workman, right, and Kesley Patterson, back to camera, push a kayak through floodwaters as they transport items from their flooded homes in Indianapolis, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

Darius Canler and Curtis Carey carry a TV from their flooded home in Indianapolis, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)

Scott Conrad, left, Joseph Workman, second from left, Ronan Carey, in the boat, and Kesley Patterson use a kayak to transport items from their flooded homes in Indianapolis, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Obed Lamy)