Unanimous choice: Ohio State is No. 1 in AP preseason Top 25

TCU and Baylor, final yr’s Huge 12 co-champions who have been denied spots within the playoff, each achieved their highest preseason rankings.

At No. 18 Arkansas will start 2015 with their best ranking in an AP Preseason Poll since 2012. The preseason poll was started in 1950. The SEC placed eight teams in the top 25 with four of those squads ranking in the top-15. Florida State, the defending ACC Champion, is 10th by the AP, two spots ahead of Clemson.

Before Pinkel’s arrival, the Tigers hadn’t appeared in the preseason AP poll since 1980. Alabama ranked No. 3 in the poll, followed by Baylor and Michigan State. Auburn, Oregon, USC, Georgia and FSU rounded out the Prime 10, with Notre Dame coming in 11th. Alabama’s other rival, Tennessee, just slipped into the top 25 as well.

Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen, left, laughs with Mississippi football coach Hugh Freeze prior to their NCAA college football game in Oxford, Miss., Saturday, November 29, 2014. The Badgers are the reigning champs of the Big Ten West, and even though they have to replace last season’s national leading rusher, Melvin Gordon, his successor, Corey Clement, has big expectations to be Wisconsin’s next top back. They were ranked second in 2011, 2012 and 2014. In every instance before this year, at least one other team has received a first-place vote and kept the top-ranked team from being a unanimous choice. The program has gone on to also finish in the top 25 at total of 13 of those 23 seasons. That year, though, the Tide went on to win its first of three BCS titles under Saban following that season. Baylor and Michigan State round out the top five.

The Seminoles are ranked anywhere from No. 8 to No. 12 in the major polls released in the last month.