Inside The Huskies

Huskies First CFP Playoff Team To Draw AP Poll Snub

Jedd Fisch's rebuilding team can't convince voters it deserves better.

Dan Raley

The Huskies huddle on the field during the second quarter of the CFP national championship game against Michigan.
The Huskies huddle on the field during the second quarter of the CFP national championship game against Michigan. / James Lang-USA TODAY Sports

The Associated Press preseason Top 25 college football poll was released on Monday and Jedd Fisch might want to have another T-shirt made documenting this moment, if not offering a little program outrage.

The Huskies weren't included, experiencing an unprecedented from grace from the college football penthouse.

The AP determined the UW, which returns just two starters from its 14-1 entry in 2023, is the first team to reach the College Football Playoff and turn up unranked the following season, and the first team to be unranked after finishing the previous season No. 2 in the ranking since Army in 1951.

According to the ballots submitted, the Huskies are considered the nation's 32nd best team -- better than West Virginia, Memphis, Nebraska, Wisconsin, UTSA, Tulane, Appalachian State, Kentucky, Auburn and Colorado, the other also-ran voting recipients.

Otherwise, the AP polls was its usual who's who of national powerhouses, with Georgia, Ohio State and Oregon finishing 1-2-3 and collecting all of the first-place votes. The Bulldogs drew 46, the Buckeyes 15 and the Ducks just one.

The Huskies will face five of these Top 25 teams in Oregon (3), Penn State (8), Michigan (9), USC (23) and Iowa (25).

If there's a redeeming value in the balloting, the AP poll is a bigger believer in the UW than FOX college football analyst RJ Young, who somehow decided the Huskies were no more accomplished than the nation's 83rd best team.

And to think Jedd Fisch was miffed when the Huskies didn't make the Top 50 of another more obscure preseasopoll.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley

DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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