College Football Week 1 Projections: Predicting AP Top 25 teams ft. Georgia 

While the Coaches Poll has been released, the AP Top 25 for the 2024 preseason hasn't yet arrived. But it's probably not that tough to make a pretty good guess as to the initial poll's contents.

Here's a likely projection of the top-25 for the first AP poll, as well as a few comments on the presumed poll guesstimate.

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Prediction of initial 2024 AP Top 25 teams

Louisville and coach Jeff Brohm could sneak into the AP Top 25 when it is released before the season. (Photo credit: IMAGN)

1.Georgia

2. Ohio State

3. Oregon

4. Alabama

5. Texas

6. Ole Miss

7. Notre Dame

8. Penn State

9. Florida State

10. Michigan

11. LSU

12. Oklahoma

13. Missouri

14. Clemson

15. Tennessee

16. Utah

17. USC

18. Kansas State

19. Oklahoma State

20. Arizona

21. Miami

22. NC State

23. Iowa

24. Texas A&M

25. Louisville

Thoughts on the projections

While the top-three are the same as the coaches' poll, Alabama might get a bit more media attention than Texas, which is why those are flipped at 4-5 from their coaches' poll positions.

The only other projected difference in the polls in the top-10 is Michigan at 10th instead of eighth, as in the coaches poll. Given all of the massive personnel losses the Wolverines suffered and the relative difficulty of the Big Ten next season, eighth seems a bit high for the defending champs.

LSU is picked to flip spots with Missouri for the simple reason that LSU's potential for a deeper national run seems more significant. Oklahoma and USC are climbs of a few spots above their respective coaches poll rankings, while Utah is projected a couple spots lower. This is just accounting for the national prestige of the teams, which seems to matter a bit more to the poll writers than to coaches.

The coaches poll seemed a bit bullish to Kansas, who ended up just outside of the top-25 of the projections. Meanwhile, Louisville, who was second in the "receiving votes" section of the coaches poll, is projected 25th here. This is just a nod to the ACC over the Big 12, which could be a hot mess this season.

Overall, it's probably wise to temper expectations of too much wildness. A solid 20 of the top 25 preseason teams are pretty much inarguable. At the end of the day, while a team may move up or down a few spots, other than the teams at the very bottom of the polls, there probably won't be many surprises.

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What's your projection for the initial AP top 25 for 2024? Think your team will go lower or higher than projected? Let's hear about it in the comments section below: