Texas Tech Historical Preseason Ranking

The first official college football poll was released yesterday. The Coaches Top 25 poll listed three Big 12 teams in the Top 25. TCU was ranked at #2, Baylor at #4 and Oklahoma at #19. On a side note I saw this was the first season since 1998 that Texas was not ranked in the Top 25. Arkansas is the only other team on Tech's scheduled ranked in the Top 25 at #20.

Here's a breakdown by conference:

SEC: 8

Pac 12: 6

Big 12: 3

Big 10: 3

ACC: 3

Independent: 1

MWC: 1

I don't have a problem with the SEC bias. It is very similar to ESPN's east coast bias. Some people will believe there is a bias and others won't. Not sure it is worth wasting any time debating, because neither side will change their minds I am interested to hear why Notre Dame who lost five of their last seven last season found their way to a #11 ranking. That is more than a little bewildering. As is the Auburn ranking of #7 even though they lost four of their last five. All in all most things of this will be settled on the field so it isn't anything to get worked up about.

As far as Tech goes, I did a little historical digging and although I couldn't find Coaches Poll historical data, I did find some historical AP Poll data. The last preseason AP Poll Tech was ranked was in 2008 when they started the season at #12. In the 65 preseason polls, Tech has appeared in 6 of them (9.2%) with an average ranking of #17. The highest Tech has been ranked in the preseason poll at #8 in 1977. They are tied in 54th place all time in number of appearances in the preseason AP Poll, tied with Army, Navy, Louisville, Oregon State, Kansas and North Carolina State. Of all 1,087 weekly AP polls, Tech has been ranked in 13% of the weeks.