The longest standing, largely unchanged vestige of the Bowl Championship Series, the USA Today Coaches’ Poll crowned Alabama as the preseason favorite to capture the final BCS title.
In the final season of the BCS the Crimson Tide will begin the season as the prohibitive favorites to ride the Coaches Poll, Harris Interactive Poll and computers into the final BCS title game before the system shuts down one last time.
Ohio State comes in at No. 2, taking three first-place votes to Alabama’s 58, while No. 6 Texas A&M grabs the last first-place tally. Oregon, Stanford and Georgia round out the top five.
Here we investigate the preseason poll by vote share, the statistic that the BCS will use to calculate the nation’s top teams during the last eight weeks of the college football year.
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Preseason USA Today Coaches’ Poll – August 1
| Rank | Team | Votes | Share of Vote |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 1545 | .996 |
| 2 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 1427 | .921 |
| 3 | Oregon Ducks | 1397 | .901 |
| 4 | Stanford Cardinal | 1262 | .814 |
| 5 | Georgia Bulldogs | 1250 | .806 |
| 6 | Texas A&M Aggies | 1215 | .784 |
| 7 | South Carolina Gamecocks | 1136 | .733 |
| 8 | Clemson Tigers | 1047 | .675 |
| 9 | Louisville Cardinals | 1010 | .652 |
| 10 | Florida Gators | 930 | .600 |
| 11 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 872 | .563 |
| 12 | Florida State Seminoles | 844 | .545 |
