While trying to push the most unpopular playoff expansion format possible, Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti and the league's coaches did add their respective voices to something that should resonate with many college football fans - dumping the top 25 preseason polls.
You aren't going to find too many arguments from here about why the preseason polls are necessary, and it's good that one of the top superpower conferences is saying what most of us feel - let's play some games first.
This wasn’t among the talking points for Big Ten coaches and officials in Las Vegas, but I brought it up to several and they agreed: The preseason polls should be obliterated. They carry too much meaning and shape debate, overvaluing/undervaluing teams before we know anything.
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) July 26, 2025
The conference had already done away with the league media preseason poll, which inspired the Big XII to follow suit. I would expect the ACC to also jump behind the efforts to eliminate preseason polls, although they didn't speak much about it publicly or otherwise during Media Days last week.
Fact is, in this new college football world of NIL deals and the transfer portal, it's much harder to predict which teams are going to be good because many of them are so different from one year to the next. At a certain point, the pollsters can't make an educated guess, so they simply start voting for logos.
Asked about preseason media poll, Tim Pernetti says they are moving away from it because it is more difficult to figure out what will happen with transfer portal. Adds that national polls should follow suit and not start until after the first month of the season.
— Guerry Smith (@Guersmith) July 25, 2025
Kansas State coach Chris Kleiman told Brandon Marcello of CBSSports,com that the AP and Coaches' top 25 polls shouldn't be released until the time that the College Football Playoff committee releases their first poll.
"When the CFP comes out, that's when the first AP and USA Today poll should come out," Kleiman said. "The narrative tells you everything, and unfortunately, that's not great for the Big 12. It's probably not great for the ACC. You know, it's just not."
It seems unrealistic to wait so long for the first top 25 polls to be released. In a perfect world, the final Sunday in September would be an ideal time. By then, many teams will have started conference play.
This isn't to say preseason polls will go away even if the AP and coaches decide to do away with then. The magazines will continue to have polls and don't be surprised if the TV networks use the opportunity to create more discussion around where 'Team X' might appear in the first poll. The lack of a poll before the end of September should only serve to feed the debate television.
There is still no perfect system to "get it right" in college football, but there should be greater efforts to get it less wrong.