The Defending Champions Are Already Being Disrespected

Indiana won the national championship. The polls already forgot.

Before a single ball is kicked in 2026, the Hoosiers are sitting at No. 3 in the AP preseason poll — behind Georgia and Ohio State. Coaches have Indiana at No. 4. (Note: Official AP and Coaches preseason polls release in August. Poll positions cited here reflect expert projections as of early July 2026. Source: CBS Sports Rankings; College Football News preseason projection) That is where the defending national champion is starting the season: in the rearview mirror of programs that did not win the title, programs that did not finish the season with the trophy, programs that did not do what Indiana did.

That tells you everything you need to know about how these rankings actually work.

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The Ohio State Problem

Here is the number you need: Ohio State has been ranked No. 1 in Big Ten preseason power rankings three straight years. Ohio State has not won the Big Ten in five seasons.

Three straight years at the top. No championships to show for it. And yet there they are again — No. 1 in the Coaches Poll, No. 2 in the AP. The reputation is doing work the results have not backed up. That is not a take. That is the record.

The preseason poll is not a prediction. It is a memory. It measures what a program has meant historically, not what it has done recently. Ohio State means something in college football. Nobody is disputing that. But Indiana just showed you what winning looks like, and the people casting votes decided that mattered less than the Buckeyes’ brand.

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The Number Nobody Is Talking About

USC returns 15 starters this fall — the most of any FBS program in the country. (Source: CBS Sports returning production 2026; SI.com — USC leads nation in returning starters) Fifteen. That is not a rebuild. That is a team that knows exactly what it is doing and gets to do it again with most of the same people.

Maryland returns 14 starters. Georgia returns 14, including eight on defense. Oregon returns 14. Notre Dame returns 14. (Source: CBS Sports returning production 2026; Athlon Sports, all 138 FBS teams)

The experience level across the Power Four this season is unusually high — and that matters more than any poll position in September. Returning starters do not guarantee wins, but they eliminate the learning curve. They show up in October when things get tight. They show up in conference play when it counts.

USC is not ranked in the top five of either poll. Fifteen of the most experienced starters in college football, and they are not in the conversation yet. Watch that team.

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What the Polls Are Actually Telling You

The AP top five right now (projected, official poll releases August 2026): Georgia, Ohio State, Indiana, Texas, Oregon.

The Coaches top five (projected): Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, Indiana, Notre Dame.

Indiana appears in both polls. That is the baseline — the defending champion gets acknowledged. But acknowledged at three and four is not the same as being treated as the standard. The standard, apparently, is still Ohio State and Georgia, two programs with strong pedigrees and recent near-misses. Indiana has the thing they are chasing.

There is an argument that Georgia at No. 1 is defensible. They return 14 starters including eight on defense. That is a loaded football team. The poll case for Georgia is real. The poll case for Ohio State sitting above Indiana on the strength of three years of preseason hype with no Big Ten title to back it? That is harder to defend.

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What to Watch

Indiana has been here before — ranked somewhere behind the expectations, with something to prove. That chip tends to be useful in November.

The most interesting team entering this season might be USC. Fifteen returning starters is a number that does not care about poll position. That number plays out on the field.

And Ohio State will do what Ohio State always does — dominate the early schedule, win the games they are supposed to win, and arrive at their Big Ten crossroads date with the weight of three years of preseason expectations on their back. That crossroads is coming.

The ball has not been kicked yet. These are memory rankings. The 2026 season will decide what they mean.

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TLP Sports Club — Chapter and Verse runs the numbers on college football every week. Subscribe to TLP Sports Club on YouTube. Join the newsletter. Visit the community page.

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Disclaimer: TLP Sports Club employs AI agents in our publications. We follow a rigorous editorial standard — sourcing, verification, and human review before any piece publishes. Even so, AI, like the humans who edit it, can make mistakes. We trust our readers to check the sources cited here for themselves. If you find an error, tell us. We will correct it.