The Oklahoma Sooners are ranked at No. 5 and the Oklahoma State Cowboys are No 15 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.
OU opens the season by hosting Missouri State on September 12 and OSU will play Tulsa in Stillwater on the same day.
The starting times for both games have not been announced.
OU has been ranked in the Top 10 of the Preseason AP Top 25 for 18 of the last 20 years. OU has been in the Top 25 for 21 years in a row and has appeared in the preseason Top 26 62 times over the years. Only Ohio State has more appearances (67).
In fact, OU’s all-time average preseason AP rank is 6.6, best in the nation (Alabama is second at 7.3).
OU has finished the season in the Top 5 of the AP Poll in four of the last five seasons. Oklahoma has won five Big 12 Championships in a row and has gone to the College Football Playoff in four of the last five years.
Oklahoma is No. 6 in the preseason Coaches Poll and was picked to win the Big 12 in 2020 by the media.
Oklahoma State has now been ranked in the AP preseason top 25 three of the past five and six of the past 10 years.
It marks the highest preseason rank in the poll for OSU since 2017, when it was voted No. 10. Oklahoma State has received votes in the preseason AP Top 25 each of the past 12 years and has been in the top 20 in six of the past 12 years.
The Cowboys were included in the preseason USA TODAY Coaches Poll, starting the year at No. 16.
Clemson is the preseason No. 1 in the AP Top 25.
Oddly, nine teams from the Big Ten Conference and the Pac-12 Conference were including in the Top 25. Those two conferences are not playing football this fall due to concerns over the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Once the season starts, No. 2 Ohio State and 53 other Bowl Subdivision teams will no longer be eligible for the Top 25 because they have postponed their seasons until the spring.
Ohio State extended the longest active streak of preseason Top 25 appearances with 32, followed by Oklahoma with 21, LSU with 20, Georgia with 19, Alabama with 13 and Clemson with nine.
The Mid-American and Mountain West conferences have canceled their fall schedules and hope to play spring football.
The SEC, Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12, American Athletic, Conference USA and Sun Belt are going to play this fall.
The three remaining Power 5 conferences, the SEC, ACC and Big 12, delayed the start of the season gotten rid of most nonconference games.
The SEC has seven teams in the Top 25, including six of the top 13 teams. The Big 12 has four teams in the Top 25 and the American Athletic Conference has two.
The Big Ten has six, but when the regular season starts, No. 6 Penn State, No. 12 Wisconsin, No. 16 Michigan, No. 19 Minnesota and No. 24 Iowa will no longer be eligible for votes.
The same goes for No. 9 Oregon, No. 17 USC and No. 22 Utah of the Pac-12.
- SEC: 7 (Nos. 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 25).
- Big Ten: 6 (Nos. 2, 7, 12, 16, 19, 24).
- Big 12: 4 (Nos. 5, 14, 15, 23).
- ACC: 3 (Nos. 1, 10, 18).
- Pac-12: 3 (Nos. 9, 17, 22).
- American: 2 (Nos. 20, 21).
No. 18 North Carolina, led by former Texas coach Mack Brown, is ranked in the preseason for the first time since 2016.
No. 19 Cincinnati from the AAC makes its first appearance in the AP preseason poll.
The Bearcats have finished ranked in each of the past two seasons.
No. 20 Minnesota is making its first preseason poll appearance since 2004.
Last year, the Gophers started unranked and ending at No. 10, their best finish since 1962.
AP Top 25 poll
First-place votes in parentheses:
- Clemson (38)
- Ohio State (21)
- Alabama (2)
- Georgia
- Oklahoma (2)
- LSU (1)
- Penn State
- Florida
- Oregon
- Notre Dame
- Auburn
- Wisconsin
- Texas A&M
- Texas
- Oklahoma State
- Michigan
- USC
- North Carolina
- Minnesota
- Cincinnati
- UCF
- Utah
- Iowa State
- Iowa
- Tennessee