Iowa Football: Hawkeyes Ranked 24th in Preseason AP Poll

Like the rest of the Big Ten and Pac-12, the Iowa Hawkeyes will not be playing football this fall. That hasn’t stopped them from being ranked in preseason polls that continue to come out despite the uncertainty surrounding a fall football season.

Today, the Associated Press released their preseason poll and as with the Coaches Poll, the Hawkeyes find themselves inside the top-25. Iowa comes in at 24th in the only poll which will have them ranked this year.

Why, exactly, are they ranked? Well, because they were poised to be a solid team contending for a Big Ten West crown and the preseason polls are conducted based on the expectations for all of college football heading into the season, if there were to be one (perhaps the most compelling evidence that preseason polls are entirely meaningless). From here on out, however, those teams that are not playing will not be considered in the polls.

Here’s a look at the entire AP top-25 with teams not playing this fall bolded:

1. Clemson
2. Ohio State
3. Alabama
4. Georgia
5. Oklahoma
6. LSU
7. Penn State
8. Florida
9. Oregon
10. Notre Dame
11. Auburn
12. Wisconsin
13. Texas A&M
14. Texas
15. Oklahoma State
16. Michigan
17. USC
18. North Carolina
19. Minnesota
20. Cincinnati
21. Central Florida
22. Utah
23. Iowa State
24. Iowa
25. Tennessee

Of note, a full nine of the top-25 teams will not be playing this fall. For the math majors, that’s more than 35%. That should make for quite the shake up when the polls for Week 2 are released. Assuming no major upsets inside the (still playing) top-10, you should expect to see a full six of the top ten from the SEC coming out of week one because, of course.

Over in the Coaches Poll, which came out nearly three weeks ago, it’s a similar story with the same nine teams ranked inside the top-25 in the preseason. That Hawkeyes, you’ll recall, were 23rd in that poll.

Also of note, the Iowa State Cyclones, if they can avoid a week one loss, would be in line to jump nearly into the top-15 in week two as seven teams ranked in front of them will be stripped out of the polls heading into week two. If the Cyclones could manage to get inside the top-15 with some losses in front of them, that would mark just the third time since 1981 they’ve accomplished such a ranking.

As painful as it may be to watch a college football season that doesn’t include the Hawkeyes, here’s hoping we indeed get something in the way of college sports this fall and perhaps even a Big Ten season come spring.