The college football offseason is marching right along with spring football already underway at numerous practice facilities across the country.
Today’s task: Predict the No. 1-ranked team in the preseason AP Top 25, which will be revealed later this summer. Prediction markets like Kalshi have already set up odds for this market (and have Ohio State as the early favorite).
Predicting preseason AP No. 1 team
Before we dive into the prediction methodology, here’s a look at the odds on Kalshi:
Power conference teams
For the sake of the exercise, let’s start with all 138 FBS football teams as theoretical possibilities. Don’t worry, we’ll narrow down the list quickly.
Of the last 25 preseason No. 1 teams, all of them came from The P5 (or P4) level. So right off the bat, we can eliminate every program that’s not in the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC or Notre Dame.
Two or fewer losses
With the list of possible contenders now at 68, we can cut it down further. Of the last 25 preseason AP No. 1 teams, 23 of them have had 2 or fewer losses in the prior campaign.
That’s a pretty convincing trend — and one that makes sense logically. AP Poll voters want to back teams with tangible momentum from the previous season.
Here are the teams who meet that criteria with power-conference status for 2026:
- Indiana
- Ole Miss
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Georgia
- Texas Tech
- Texas A&M
- Notre Dame
- BYU
- Utah
That’s 11 teams still under consideration.
Finished previous season ranked in the top 6
Now, we can slash the list of possible No. 1 teams even further. For 24 years in a row, the preseason No. 1 team has finished the previous season ranked in the top 6 of the final AP Poll.
A bit arbitrary, sure, but 24 in a row is virtually bulletproof. If we’re OK with assuming that trend continues, here are the 6 possible contenders for the honor:
- Indiana
- Miami
- Ole Miss
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Georgia
Now, there are a couple of things worth mentioning here. One, Miami didn’t make the cut under the previous criteria because it lost for the third time in the national championship game. Under previous postseason models, the Canes probably would have gone to a NY6 bowl game and maybe would have won, so it’s hard to completely disqualify them based on history. Because of the inconsistencies in Playoff structure over this sample size of seasons, I’m grandfathering the Canes into the list of final contenders.
To that point, whether or not a team played for the national championship the year before has been relatively predictive of the preseason No. 1 team. Over the last quarter-century, 64% (16/25) of preseason No. 1s played in the natty the prior season. That’s a point in Miami’s column.
Second, Ole Miss is a pretty significant outlier here because the Rebels have endured a head coaching change. Each of the other 5 programs listed above will return their head coach and it’s relatively rare for a preseason No. 1 contender to have a coaching change. I think it’s safe to cross the Rebels off the list.
Returning starting quarterback
Another criteria to look for when determining a preseason No. 1 team is whether or not the team returns its starting quarterback. Of the last 25 preseason No. 1 teams, 18 of them have returned their starting quarterback from the prior season.
Of the 6 teams above, 4 return their same starters from 2025: Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia and Ole Miss (pending any further litigation in the Trinidad Chambliss case).
Of course, it’s worth noting that Indiana and Miami will have experienced options at quarterback with Josh Hoover and Darian Mensah, respectively.
However, last year’s preseason No. 1 team, Texas, didn’t meet this criteria as Arch Manning was beginning his first full season as a starter in Austin.
Transfer portal class strength
The strength of a team’s transfer portal class has had surprisingly little signal when it comes to predicting a preseason No. 1 team. Per the 247Sports composite rankings, here are the transfer portal class rankings for the AP’s top preseason choice over the last 5 years: 2025 Texas (23rd), 2024 Georgia (13th), 2023 Georgia (56th), 2022 Alabama (6th), 2021 Alabama (9th).
Leaving 2023 Georgia aside, those are some strong classes, but there’s never been a preseason No. 1 team with a top-5 transfer portal class. That streak won’t go on forever, but having an elite portal class is clearly not a requirement to be preseason No. 1 in this era.
Criteria recap
Here’s a chart of all the criteria mapped over the past 25 seasons. Data is via Radar360:
Preseason No. 1 prediction
I want to approach this in 2 different ways — I’ll name the team I think will be No. 1 and then I’ll name the team that I think has the most value relative to the current market on Kalshi.
Oregon checks every box for me as a preseason No. 1. The Ducks are in a big conference, had 2 or fewer losses last season, finished in the top-6 in the final 2025 AP Poll and have a returning starting quarterback.
It’s important to note that Oregon is not the only team to check all those boxes. Georgia and Ohio State do as well. But I give the slightest of edges to the Ducks because they have the best returning quarterback of that group in Dante Moore and have generally been trending up as a program under Dan Lanning for multiple years. Georgia and Ohio State have peaked with national championships in recent seasons, but I’m not convinced voters will be willing to reward them with a preseason No. 1 ranking after disappointing Playoff exits.
The latest price for Oregon to be the preseason No. 1 team on Kalshi is 21 cents per contract.
As for the best value on the board, I believe that to be Georgia. The Bulldogs are currently trading on Kalshi at 3 cents per contract to be the preseason No. 1 team despite checking every major indicator.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
