Spring football has already begun for some teams and every year in late February; I put out my Projected AP Top 10 basically six months ahead of the AP Top Ten release!
It is important to make the point that this is NOT MY preseason Top 10 for next season, rather what I am projecting the Preseason AP Top 10 will look like to start the season.
My predicted Preseason AP Top 10 has been a PERFECT 10 for 10 in NINE of the 17 years that I have put it out! When I predict the AP Top 10 in February (about a HALF YEAR ahead of the actual AP poll), I have now hit on 162 out of 170 over the last 17 years! That means hitting all 10 teams in nine of the seventeen years and missing by just one team in the other eight years. Once again, predicting the top ten teams in the AP poll SIX MONTHS in advance, the record is now 162 out of 170 or 95.2%!
2024 was one of those years where I missed by one. I had the top 9 teams correct. For #10 I went with Missouri. The Tigers had a lot coming back and a very manageable schedule. The Tigers just missed the top 10 coming in at #11 in the AP Poll. The AP voters went with Florida State at #10 and the Seminoles did not live up to that lofty ranking going just 2-10 on the year. Missouri won their bowl game and finished 10-3. My #10 team would have worked better.
Last year I originally was going to go with Tennessee in the top 10 but then QB Nico Iamaleva left the team, so I plugged Miami into the #10 spot and when the AP poll came out in August (6 months later) it was 10 or 10!!
Today there are exactly 100 days until the magazine goes to press! This year with the addition of North Dakota St and Sacramento St the magazine increases to 368 pages. The first edition was just 192 pages and this year’s has two full pages on all 138 FBS teams.
This week I am starting the second write through process for each team. We have been working full tilt on the magazine since the end of November and are only half-way thru the exhaustive process. The second write thru process lasts about a month and a half. Once spring practices have ended, the third write through process begins which involves me talking to 125+ coaches spending about an hour with each going over their teams with them. Last year we sent the last page to the press on June 6th and started putting the VIP’s magazines in the mail on June 11th, the fasted turnaround ever!
I know many of you order the magazine in advance so that you can be the FIRST in the country to receive one. When you sign up for the VIP deal you will receive your magazine well before it hits Barnes and Nobles on July 4th.
The VIP digital bonus was even better than expected last year as all VIP members had access to the magazine two days after we sent it to the press and were reading it for a full week before it was even printed (3 weeks before it hit the newsstand). Also, we did not open access to the digital magazine to anyone but VIP members for a full week after that! All VIP members had two full weeks of EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to the digital version!
The VIP DEAL gets you FOUR free issues of my Inside the Pressbox Newsletter which sells for $20 per issue. The newsletter gives you my personal analysis of every game for the weekend and supplies you with my computer’s forecast for each game projecting each team’s rush yards, pass yards and points. It comes with 4 Free College Issues, but you can call the office and change that to 2 Free College and two Free NFL if you like. In 2024 the four free issues went 16-9 on the Best Bets!
The VIP DEAL also will get you my 2026 Phil Steele FCS magazine (digital only) FREE and this is a $25 value! Last year there were 118 games between FCS and FBS teams and you can become an instant expert on all 126 FCS teams getting the magazine in much the same format as the FBS magazine. You get the same TWO FULL PAGES on every FCS team!! Keep in mind most states have legalized gambling, and they post numbers on FCS vs FCS games, and you will have remarkable line value on these games being an expert while many folks know very little about the FCS teams.
This year I have added a SUPER VIP deal. The price is just $30 more or basically the cost of one magazine mailed to you. In the SUPER VIP you get TWO magazines and access to Phil Steele Plus ($99) for a FULL year thru the Super Bowl! If you are thinking of subscribing to Phil Steele Plus again for 2026, just get the SUPER VIP deal and save $30 plus get two magazines and all the other bonuses. I may stop this offer soon. To get the SUPER VIP membership CLICK HERE. This includes daily access to the Schedule Predictor which give you hundreds of Best Bets during the year and breaks down EVERY FBS game in 15 different categories.
You can also order by calling 1-866-918-7711.
This year the price of the 2026 Phil Steele College Football preview (368 pages), the VIP and Super VIP will be going up on March 1st, but you can beat the price increase by signing up in these final few days of FEBRUARY!
Here are the ten teams I feel will be in the 2026 AP Preseason Top Ten and over the last seventeen years 162 of my 170 (95.2%) Projected top ten teams in February made the actual top ten, so as I said earlier, I seem to have a pretty good feel for how the voters will rank these teams come August.
My 2026 Projected AP Preseason Top 10.
- Ohio St
- Texas
- Notre Dame
- Oregon
- Georgia
- Indiana
- Miami Florida
- Texas Tech
- Ole Miss
- LSU
A couple of notes about the top Ten. This year a ton of the top ten teams return their star starting QB. In a normal year Texas might be slated at #1 with Arch Manning back and they host Ohio State but Texas was the preseason #1 AP team last year and did not even make the playoff. I do not see the majority of the AP voters repicking Texas #1 after last year. Ohio State has QB Sayan, RB Jackson and WR Smith all back and will likely get the #1 nod. Notre Dame did not get picked for the playoff last year and is out to “leave no doubt” this year. Oregon has one of the top QB’s back in Dante Moore and Georgia has a more veteran team than last year’s SEC Champs including QB Gunnar Stockton. Indiana is the first of the top 6 teams to not return their QB but they added Josh Hoover and Cignetti does wonders with QB’s. Miami Florida had a big question mark at QB answered when they signed Darian Mensah away from Duke. Texas Tech looks to be the cream of the crop once again in the Big 12 adding Brendan Sorsby from Cincinnati and will be a solid favorite to make the playoff. Ole Miss had a big court decision go their way when Trinidad Chambliss who starred in 3 playoff games was awarded eligibility. That will keep them in the top ten after just missing a trip to the finals last year. The tenth team is usually the toughest one for me to peg. This year I was trying to decide between Texas A&M, Michigan, Oklahoma and LSU but Lane Kiffin is the King of the portal and did land a QB that took his Arizona St team to the playoff and nearly knocked off Texas and I feel the voters will plug them in at #10.
This Top Ten is now part of the spring guide which I will post on the site mid-March. I feel confident that this will be another perfect 10 for 10 or almost perfect 9 of 10 on these teams for once the AP Preseason Poll is released mid to late August! When the AP Poll comes out a half of year from now make sure you check back to this blog to see how I did.
This year the price of the 2026 Phil Steele College Football Preview, the VIP and Super VIP will be going up on March 1st, but you can beat the price increase by signing up in these final few days of FEBRUARY! Here is a direct link to the Store
