D12 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 , 2019

BY RALPH D. RUSSO

Cross off another milestone for
Clemson, college football’s
newest superpower.
For the first time, the defend-
ing champion Tigers are No. 1 in
the Associated Press preseason
top 25 poll. The Tigers, led by
freshman quarterback Trevor
Lawrence, in January won the
program’s second College Foot-
ball Playoff title in three seasons.
Alabama, coming off a 44-16
loss to Clemson in the CFP cham-
pionship game, is No. 2. Clemson
received 52 first-place votes, and
Alabama landed the other 10.
Clemson snapped a record-tying
string of three straight years in
which Alabama was the pre-
season No. 1.
Georgia, Alabama’s SEC rival,
is No. 3, followed by Oklahoma
and Ohio State.
Clemson’s rise under Coach
Dabo Swinney is uncommon in
college football. The school won
the national championship in
1981, but mostly it had resided on
a tier well below the traditional
powers. Clemson was usually
good and sometimes excellent,
but never this.
Last season’s championship
made Clemson just the 12th
school with at least three AP titles
since the poll started in 1936. The
Tigers enter 2019 on a 15-game
winning streak and with eight
straight seasons of double-digit
victories. Since 2015, when they
lost the CFP championship game
to Alabama, the Tigers are 55-4.
Coach Nick Saban’s Alabama
dynasty, with five national titles
in a 10-year span, has finally met
its match. The Tide is also 55-4 in
the past four seasons.
Clemson and Alabama have
split the past four champion-
ships, have played in the past four
playoffs and are poised to make it
five straight. This will be the
third time since 2016 that the
Tigers and Crimson Tide have
started the season at No. 1 and
No. 2.
Beginning with 2015, when

Alabama and Clemson occupied

the top two spots in the last four

AP polls of the season, the Tide

and Tigers have been No. 1 and

No. 2 in some order 22 times.

Last year’s Clemson team was

highlighted by a defensive line

that had three starters selected in

the first round of the NFL draft.

The Tigers have some rebuild-

ing to do, but recent history

suggests reinforcements are

ready. This year, Lawrence will be

the headliner. The first freshman

quarterback in more than three

decades to lead a team to a

national championship, Law-

rence is joined by wide receivers

Tee Higgins (12 touchdowns) and

Justyn Ross (nine touchdowns),

as well as game-breaking run-

ning back Travis Etienne (8.1

yards per carry).

Alabama returns quarterback

Tua Tagovailoa, the Heisman Tro-

phy runner-up, and an array of

weapons, too.

Clemson is the 23rd team to be

preseason No. 1 and the first

first-timer since Georgia in 2008.

The Tigers will try to become

the 12th team to start No. 1 and

finish No. 1 since the preseason

poll started in 1950. The last to do

it was Alabama in 2017. Only two

teams have gone wire-to-wire as

No. 1: Florida State in 1999 and

Southern California in 2004.

Alabama has now been No. 2 to

start the season nine times,

matching Oklahoma for the most

in history. Just as many teams (11)

have started No. 2 and won the

title as No. 1.

Ohio State is ranked in the

preseason for the 31st consecu-

tive season (1989 to 2019), the

third-best all-time streak behind

only Penn State (34 years, 1968 to

2002) and Nebraska (33 years,

1970 to 2002). The Buckeyes have

been ranked in 66 of 70 preseason

polls, most of any school. The

Buckeyes were unranked in 1966,

1967, 1979 and 1988.

No. 12 Texas A&M and South

Carolina will each play the pre-

season top three. Only three

times previously had a team had

the entire preseason top three on

its schedule:


In 1968, Northwestern faced

Purdue, USC and Notre Dame —

and went 0-3.

In 1972, Minnesota faced Ne-

braska, Colorado and Ohio State

— and went 0-3.


In 1975, Missouri faced Okla-

homa, Alabama and Michigan —

and went 1-2, beating No. 2 Ala-

bama to open the season.

Other notables:


No. 14 Utah has been a regu-

lar in the rankings for most of the

past five seasons, but the Utes

have not been ranked in the

preseason since 2011, when they

started No. 19. That was the

season after Coach Kyle Whit-

tingham’s team went unbeaten.

In 2014, 2015, and 2016, the Utes

finished the season ranked after

starting unranked.


No. 21 Iowa State is making

its second appearance in the

preseason poll. The Cyclones

were No. 20 in 1978.


No. 22 Syracuse is in the

preseason top 25 for the first time

since 1998, when the Orange

were No. 17.


No. 24 Nebraska had not

been ranked in the preseason

since 2014, the program’s longest

drought since 1955 to 1959. The

ranking also ends a string of 32

straight polls in which Nebraska

had not been ranked, dating from

the final one of the 2016 season.

That is also the longest run of

unranked teams the Huskers

have had since the late 1950s.

— Associated Press

Another first for Clemson: No. 1 in the AP preseason poll

CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Behind quarterback Trevor Lawrence, Clemson won its second College Football Playoff title in three years by routing Alabama in January.

Defending champion

tops Alabama, with

Georgia, Oklahoma next

AP TOP 25

The top 25 teams in the Associated Press preseason

college football poll, with first-place votes in parenthe-

ses, 2018 records, total points based on 25 points for a

first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote,

and 2018 final ranking:

RECORD PTS PVS

1.Clemson (52) 15-0 1540 1

2.Alabama (10) 14-1 1496 2

3.Georgia 11-3 1403 7

4.Oklahoma 12-2 1331 4

5.Ohio State 13-1 1261 3

6.LSU 10-3 1199 6

7.Michigan 10-3 1164 14

8.Florida 10-3 1054 7

9.Notre Dame 12-1 1044 5

10.Texas 10-4 1005 9

11.Oregon 9-4 860 NR

12.Texas A&M 9-4 852 16

13.Washington 10-4 786 13

14.Utah 9-5 772 NR

15.Penn State 9-4 651 17

16.Auburn 8-5 578 NR

17.Central Florida 12-1 410 11

18.Michigan State 7-6 377 NR

19.Wisconsin 8-5 370 NR

20.Iowa 9-4 330 25

21.Iowa State 8-5 302 NR

22.Syracuse 10-3 209 15

23.Washington State 11-2 200 10

24.Nebraska 4-8 154 NR

25.Stanford 9-4 141 NR

Others receiving votes: Missouri 117, Army 94, Missis-

sippi State 87, Miami 70, Northwestern 63, TCU 57,

Virginia 44, Boise State 38, Cincinnati 16, South Carolina

15, Virginia Tech 12, Fresno State 8, Utah State 8,

Minnesota 7, Memphis 6, Appalachian State 5, UAB 3,

West Virginia 3, Oklahoma State 3, Arizona State 3,

Arizona 1, Southern California 1.

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