It’s never too early to discuss the projected preseason rankings for the upcoming college football season.

With that in mind, we thought we’d share with you Phil Steele’s projected AP top 10 for the 2021 season. To be clear, these are not the teams Steele has in his personal top 10 preseason rankings for the 2021 season.

This list is a projection of the 10 teams he expects to be in the AP’s preseason top 10 for the 2021 season. In case you were wondering, the preseason AP poll won’t be released for another six months.

According to Steele, he’s accurately predicted the AP’s top 10 each of the last three seasons and has accurately predicted 115 of the 120 teams that have been ranked in the AP’s preseason top 10 rankings the previous 12 years.

Here are the 10 teams Steele believes will be ranked in the top 10 of the AP’s 2021 preseason poll.

#1 Alabama
#2 Clemson
#3 Georgia
#4 Oklahoma
#5 Ohio State
#6 Texas A&M
#7 Notre Dame
#8 North Carolina
#9 Iowa State
#10 Cincinnati

If these rankings are accurate, the opening weekend of the upcoming college football season will include No. 2 Clemson and No. 3 Georgia meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 4.