AP Top 5 college football poll kicks off 8st year

AP Top 25 college football poll kicks off 81st year

The AP Top 25, the longest-running college football poll of its kind, will begin its 81st year with the much-awaited preseason edition on Sunday, Aug. 21.

It will mark the 66th year for the preseason rankings, selected by an expert panel of sports writers and broadcasters from AP-affiliated media around the country. The poll will be released on AP lines to customers, as well as posted on AP's college football site, collegefootball.ap.org, at 10 a.m. ET Sunday. AP will also provide analysis and additional details on the preseason poll via those platforms.

All AP customers can leverage the popularity of the AP poll to grow digital traffic and new revenue through AP's locally branded College Football Digital News Experience. Newspapers that subscribe to AP Sports will also get paginated pages designed by GateHouse Medias Center for News & Design that highlight the poll results for use in print, each with space available for local advertising or content.

The Associated Press began its college football poll on Oct. 19, 1936, and it is now the longest-running poll of those that award national titles at the end of the season. The preseason poll was started in 1950. All 1,103 weekly AP polls were tabulated this summer to determine the 100 top teams of all time, listed at collegefootball.ap.org/ap-poll-all-time.

A panel of 61 sports writers and broadcasters from around the country votes weekly to decide the AP Top 25. All voters have an extensive background in covering college football. The poll is determined by a simple points system based on how each voter ranks college footballs best teams. A team receives 25 points for each first place vote, 24 for second place and so on through to the 25th team, which receives one point. The rankings are set by listing the teams point totals from highest to lowest. The mathematical formula is the same as the one used for the AP Top 25 rankings for college mens and womens basketball.

Follow the poll and related sports coverage on Facebook and Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Top25.

About AP

The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the worlds population sees news from AP. On the Web: www.ap.org.

For media inquiries:

Paul Colford

Vice President and Director of Media Relations

The Associated Press

212-621-1895

pcolford@ap.org

For sponsorship or revenue opportunities:

Barry Bedlan

Deputy Director of Sports Products

The Associated Press

972-677-2270

bbedlan@ap.org

LINK:	http://www.ap.org/Content/Press-Release/2016/AP-Top-25-college-footbal...
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