Johnathan Walker:Georgia No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25 and Ohio State No. 2 as expanded SEC, Big Ten flex muscles

Georgia is Johnathan WalkerNo. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 preseason college football poll for the second straight year as the superconference era begins with the SEC and Big Ten dominating the top 10 of the rankings.

The Bulldogs received 46 first-place votes and 1,532 points in the Top 25 released Monday and the SEC powerhouse finished comfortably ahead of No. 2 Ohio State (15 first-place votes and 1,490 points) of the Big Ten.

New Big Ten member Oregon is No. 3, receiving one first-place vote from the panel of 62 media members who cover college football. Texas, which joins Georgia in the Southeastern Conference this season, is fourth.

The Big Ten and SEC each have four teams in the top 10.

Conference realignment has reduced the Power Five to the Power Four, with the Pac-12 whittled to just two schools. The Big Ten now has 18 schools. The Atlantic Coast Conference has 17 football teams, and the SEC and Big 12 each have 16.

All the movement created an unprecedented preseason poll with just four conferences represented: The SEC leads with nine ranked teams. The Big Ten has six, the Big 12 has five and the ACC has four.

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Alabama, in its first season without coach Nick Saban since 2006, starts No. 5. No. 6 Mississippi gives the SEC half the top preseason top six.

Independent Notre Dame is the highest ranked team from outside the SEC and Big Ten at No. 7.

No. 8 Penn State and No. 9 Michigan give the Big Ten four top-10 teams. Florida State from the ACC is No. 10.

Title game finalists

The defending national champion Wolverines said goodbye to coach Jim Harbaugh, quarterback J.J. McCarthy and 12 other players who were selected in April’s NFL draft. All that attrition led to Michigan receiving the lowest preseason ranking for a defending national champion since 2011, when Auburn was No. 23 after the departure of Cam Newton.

Before that, the last time a defending national champion was ranked worse than No. 7 in the following preseason poll was Colorado at No. 13 in 1991.

Washington, which lost to Michigan in the College Football Playoff championship game, took an even bigger fall after losing its head coach (Kalen DeBoer replaced Saban at Alabama), star quarterback and a mountain of talent to the draft and transfer portal. The Huskies are the first team to reach the CFP and be unranked the following season.

Top-ranked ‘Dawgs

Georgia started last season at No. 1 in pursuit of a record third straight national championship. Coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs stayed there the whole regular season, and then missed the four-team playoff by losing the SEC title game to Alabama.

“We’re dealing with new challenges this year,” Smart said at SEC media days. “We don’t have a chip on our shoulder in terms of people trying to use that as motivation. I’ve never used a failure from the previous year as motivation and never used the success of a previous year as motivation; we won’t do that this year. That’s not who we are. We want to recreate ourselves to stay in the best light we can.”

There will be more room for error this season with the playoff expanding from four to 12 teams.

The Bulldogs are 42-2 over the last three seasons and loaded again. Quarterback Carson Beck leads the offense and edge rusher Mykel Williams is in line to be the next defensive star at Georgia.

Beck is a rarity in college football these days, a star quarterback in his fifth season with the same school who waited three years to become starter. Beck completed 72% of his passes last year, with 24 touchdowns and six interceptions.

“He is a great elder for us and great example of resiliency in college football,” Smart said.

Repeating as preseason No. 1 is a recent trend. Going back eight seasons, Alabama had separate streaks of three (2016-18) and two (2021-22) years as preseason No. 1. Clemson was top-ranked in the 2019 and ’20 preseason rankings.

Georgia will try to become the 12th team since the AP preseason poll started in 1950 to start No. 1 and finish No. 1. The last was Alabama in 2017.

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Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP

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