We made it, friends. College football is back with its new divisions, playoff format, and its classic rivalries.

Week zero kicks off in just 12 days with Florida State (10) taking on Georgia Tech in Dublin. Fortunately, with Game Day being live from Ireland, we will likely not have to deal with the corpse of Corso (please ESPN, I am begging you, do the right thing and stop parading him out onto the set). I could not be happier to finally have the Preseason AP Poll to comb over, dispute, debate and reference.

A little bit more about where these rankings come from: The AP Poll provides a glimpse into the expected landscape of college football with 62 sports writers providing their top 25 teams preseason and throughout the year. The writers provide their own ranking of the top 25 teams, and the individual rankings are then combined to produce the national ranking by giving a team 25 points for a first place vote, 24 for a second place vote, and so on down to 1 point for a twenty-fifth place vote.

Here is the Preseason AP Top 25 teams in College Football and their odds of making the playoff:

25 - Iowa (+600)

24 - North Carolina State (+500)

23 - USC (+400)

22 - Kansas (+600)

21 - Arizona (+750)

20 - Texas A&M (+220)

19 - Miami (+220)

18 - Kansas State (+250)

17 - Oklahoma State (+650)

16 - Oklahoma (+450)

15 - Tennessee (+170)

14 - Clemson (+190)

13 - LSU (+120)

12 - Utah (+220)

11 - Missouri (+175)

10 - Florida State (+140)

9 - Michigan (+140)

8 - Penn State (-140)

7 - Notre Dame (-160)

6 - Ole Miss (-130)

5 - Alabama (+100)

4 - Texas (-230)

3 - Oregon (-300)

2 - Ohio State (-650)

1 - Georgia (-600)

Overall, looking at the top 25, there are not too many surprises based on the previous season and the pedigree of the programs.

There are a few things to note about the odds to make the playoff. This is the first year there will be a 12-team playoff bracket. Those teams include the five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams, as determined by a selection committee.

The top 25 is made up of just four conferences. Six Big Ten teams (USC, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, Iowa), nine SEC teams (Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, Alabama, Missouri, LSU, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Oklahoma), four teams from the ACC (Clemson, Miami, Florida State, North Carolina State), five Big 12 teams (Arizona, Kansas, Kansas State, Utah, Oklahoma State) and one independent in Notre Dame, who will have to finish in the top 12 as an independent to make the playoff.

So who here is in and who will be having barguments about around the holidays when the bracket is revealed?

This is the first year of the 12-team playoff, but historical data (2014-2023) tells us quite a bit about how these preseason top twenty-five teams stack up in terms of playoff probability:

- On average, 9 out of 12 teams in a hypothetical playoff would have been ranked in the preseason AP poll.

- The preseason #1 team would always make the playoff, with 7 out of 10 getting a first-round bye.

- The preseason #2 team would make the playoff 80% of the time.

- 29 teams that started unranked made it into the hypothetical playoff over the 10-year span.

- The 2021 season was particularly unpredictable due to pandemic effects, with six unranked teams making the hypothetical playoff.

- 2022 saw five unranked teams make the hypothetical playoff, including national runner-up TCU.

- 2023 was more predictable, with only two unranked teams (Missouri and Liberty) making the hypothetical playoff.

Based on this analysis, a typical 12-team playoff would likely include from the preseason poll:

- 4 teams from the top 5

- 2 teams ranked 6-10

- 2 teams ranked 11-20

- 1 team ranked 21-25

- 3 unranked teams

The actual first 12-team playoff this year is guaranteed to have at least one unranked team due to the structure of conference representation in the playoff system.

So there you have it. The preseason top 25, and although we will not know until December who will be playing in the playoff, the AP in August can give us a pretty good idea. Happy football, friends. I am so happy to have it back.