Alabama football ranked No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25
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Alabama football starts the 2022 season atop the preseason AP Top 25, which was released Monday. The Crimson Tide received 54 first-place votes.
Ohio State (six first-place votes), Georgia (three), Clemson and Notre Dame round out the top five.
The Crimson Tide is one of 12 SEC teams to either be ranked or receive a vote. Other teams from the conference who are ranked include Texas A&M (6), Arkansas (19), Kentucky (20) and Ole Miss (21).
Teams from the SEC who received votes but did not make the AP Top 25 are Tennessee (180), LSU (55), Mississippi State (15), Auburn (15), Florida (14) and South Carolina (2). The Volunteers were the first team left out of the poll.
The Crimson Tide was also named the No. 1 team in the USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll released this past week. Nick Saban is entering his 16th season as the Crimson Tide's coach.
About a week ago, Saban said he had seen plenty of articles already determining what kind of team Alabama would have.
"In some ways this creates a much more difficult challenge to have players be hungry, try to prove what they can do together as a group," Saban said. "But it is a challenge that we're willing to deal with and hopefully we've got the right kind of leadership on our team to be able to overcome some of that so that we can avoid complacency and stay focused on doing the right things, deal with success if we have success, be able to deal with frustrations if we have failures."
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AP Top 25 preseason
1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Georgia
4. Clemson
5. Notre Dame
6. Texas A&M
7. Utah
8. Michigan
9. Oklahoma
10. Baylor
11. Oregon
12. Oklahoma State
13. North Carolina State
14. USC
15. Michigan State
16. Miami (FL)
17. Pittsburgh
18. Wisconsin
19. Arkansas
20. Kentucky
21. Ole Miss
22. Wake Forest
23. Cincinnati
24. Houston
25. BYU
Nick Kelly covers Alabama football and men's basketball for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at nkelly@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter: @_NickKelly
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football ranked No. 1 in preseason AP Top 25
