By Nicholas Martinez , September 23, 2025
Shock and confusion are emotions college football fans often feel after watching their favorite team lose on the gridiron, but lately, the biggest confusion has been caused by the falling credibility of the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.
As an avid college football fan who has followed the sport for nearly 15 years, it is disappointing seeing the poll that I once saw as the standard become ridiculed every week.
Turning on a game of college football on Saturday, you might notice some Football Bowl Subdivision teams have a number next to their name on the broadcast. The number is their national ranking in the AP Top 25 football poll.
The AP Top 25 Poll is a weekly, comprehensive ranking of the top 25 FBS teams based on the votes of multiple local and national sports reporters. Each reporter’s top 25 rankings count as votes, and the poll for that week is a result of said votes.
Since its inception in 1936, the AP Poll has been the measuring stick of how well a football program is in comparison to other teams, and its credibility has ensured that almost every discussion about top college football programs involves mention of their ranking in the poll, per the Associated Press.
The poll extends beyond football, as the AP also provides its own Top 25 poll for Division I college basketball. These polls are one of the only major rankings until the College Football Playoff rankings and March Madness brackets are published in both respective sports.
Every Sunday morning, regardless of how great or poorly my beloved UCLA Bruins football team played on the gridiron, I always find myself checking the latest AP Top 25 football poll, seeing how far the Bruins rose or dropped, as well as the other teams in the country.
But for some time, particularly these last few weeks, there have been inconsistencies within the polls.
The week three AP Poll garnered national attention on social media, after the then unranked University of South Florida Bulls defeated the No. 13 Florida Gators 18-16. AP Poll voter Haley Sawyer moved the Gators up two spots in her vote while omitting the Bulls entirely.
Though the Bulls ranked No. 19 in the final AP Poll for that week, Sawyer’s explanation of her odd vote left me and other football fans unimpressed, as Sawyer stated her vote was “really fun,” and “probably doesn’t really matter in the end.”
Even the week four AP Poll released Sunday, Sept. 14, had several questionable rankings, both in the comprehensive poll and in individual votes.
Voter Koki Riley had the Alabama Crimson Tide ranked No. 13, one spot ahead of the unbeaten Florida State Seminoles, despite defeating Alabama during week one of the college football season.
The comprehensive AP Poll also saw the winless Notre Dame Fighting Irish maintain a spot in the Top 25, becoming the first team in 37 years to start a season 0-2 and remain ranked, per The Athletic.
Yes, there are going to be differences between voters. That is the reason the poll exists in the first place. However, having an unbeaten team still ranked below a team it defeated, and being the first exception in the ranks in almost 40 years, is cause for concern.
Ryan Hammer, a college basketball analyst and critic of the AP Poll across both football and basketball, believes the media, fans and teams should not continue trusting the polls in their current state but offered a potential solution to rebuild it.
“The AP should just clean house of what they have and then go through a process of vetting for 25 to 40 national analysts for each sport, and at the beginning of every season, all they have to do is take a credibility test on the specific sport they are voting on,” Hammer said. “It would be very basic knowledge so voters know what happened last year, like for football, it would be ‘who won the national championship?’ or ‘name eight of the playoff teams.’”
Hammer’s main criticisms of the system are potential biases among reporters toward the team they cover, such as Riley favoring the LSU Tigers.
It also addresses both concerns of the number of voters, which stands at 62, and the seemingly lack of knowledge or attention among the voters themselves.
Hammer even recalled in the men’s basketball AP Poll several years ago, where a Kansas Jayhawks reporter’s bias led to a vote ranking the Jayhawks above consensus No. 1 Auburn Tigers, delaying the Tigers from officially getting the No. 1 ranking for the first time in program history.
The solution Hammer proposed is one I can fully support, as all three issues, which at least are partially to blame for the earlier examples, would be addressed by this refresh.
However, even if these problems are fixed, the trust and credibility of the AP Poll may already be beyond repair due to the frequency of these mistakes, and even if Associated Press’ polls cannot fully regain the trust of the fans, improving its voting structure would be at minimum a step in the right direction.
Feature image courtesy of Nicholas Martinez
