Defending national champion Alabama is ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press preseason Top 25 for the fifth time overall and third time under coach Nick Saban.Clemson, which lost the College Football Playoff championship game to Alabama in January, is ranked second. Alabama won its fourth national title in seven years by beating Clemson 45-40. The Crimson Tide received 33 of 61 first-place votes from the media panel and 1,469 points in the poll released Sunday. Clemson, last year’s ACC champion, received 16 first-place votes and 1,443 points. Two other ACC teams, Florida State (No. 4) and North Carolina (No. 22), made the Top 25. The Miami Hurricanes (159 votes) just missed the cut at No. 26, while Pittsburgh received 15 votes (No. 34).The last preseason No. 1 to win the national championship was USC in 2004. Alabama is the fourth straight defending champ to start the next season No. 1 in the AP poll.”It’s basically human condition to get satisfied with success,” the 64-year-old Saban, who is 105-18 at Alabama, told the AP. “There’s a lot of books written on how to be successful. There’s not a lot of books written on how to stay successful.”No. 3 Oklahoma (4), No. 4 Florida State (5), No. 5 LSU (1), No. 6 Ohio State (1) and No. 7 Michigan (1) also received first-place votes. Stanford, Tennessee and Notre Dame round out the top 10.Ole Miss is No. 11, followed by Michigan State, TCU, Washington, Houston, UCLA, Iowa, Georgia, Louisville, USC, Oklahoma State, North Carolina, Baylor, Oregon and Florida.Six SEC teams made the AP Top 25, the most of any conference.
