The day before the Alabama Crimson Tide begins Fall Camp, the preseason USA Today Coaches Poll will be released. Alabama fans can watch the unveiling conducted by USA Today reporters Blake Toppmeyer, Matt Hayes, John Brice, and Paul Myerberg. The quartet will be on YouTube at 11:00 AM CST on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
The preseason AP Poll will not be released until Aug. 17.
Last season, the Crimson Tide was preseason ranked at No. 8 in both polls. And Alabama finished with a No. 9 ranking in both polls.
What Alabama fans can expect
Crimson Tide fans can prepare by memorizing the old phrase 'It's not where you start but where you finish'. It will be needed. That certain 'experts' and the coaches will predict, and before a host of others will predict the results, might be little more than a useless exercise.
Let's look at just one prediction for the preseason AP Poll. It comes from College Football News; Pete Fiutak. Fiutak has 18 SEC and Big Ten teams in his top 25 prediction, with the Power Two each having nine teams.
The Crimson Tide comes in at No. 15, with six SEC teams ranked higher. The full list of ranked SEC teams is: Georgia No. 5, Texas No. 6, Texas A&M No. 8, Ole Miss No. 10, LSU No. 11, Oklahoma No. 12, Bama No. 15, Tennessee No. 22, and Missouri No. 23.
Making Fiutak's rankings even more disgusting is that he has the top four teams as: Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, and Indiana.
Forget Fiutak - How accurate are the AP and Coaches preseason rankings?
A short answer is not very. According to Google's AI, the AP preseason Top 25 rankings are about 52% accurate at predicting how many preseason Top 25 teams make the final season Top 25 rankings. The same source says that in the 2022 season, the accuracy was 40%. The Coaches Poll is only slightly more accurate than the AP Poll.
Alabama fans have no reason to be concerned about the Crimson Tide dropping out of the final polls. There is another Google AI point that can cause Crimson Tide consternation. It is that 73% of the preseason AP top five finish in the top ten. That percentage suggests that where a team starts might well affect where it finishes in human polls. The CFB Playoff rankings are a human poll.
Note: Poll history provided by Sports Reference
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