AP to name first preseason All-America football team, kick off 82nd year of Top 25 poll

The Associated Press All-America team, the longest-running annual honor roll of the nation's top college football players, will begin its 92nd year with its first preseason edition on Tuesday, Aug. 22. The preseason edition of the AP Top 25 football poll, entering its 82nd year, will be released a day earlier on Monday, Aug. 21.

The first AP All-America team was selected in 1925, a decade before the first Heisman Trophy. The same expert panel of 61 sports writers and broadcasters from AP-affiliated media around the country who decide the AP Top 25 will select the preseason All-America players for each position to first, second and third teams.

The AP All-America team had previously only been released after the end of each regular season. AP has been naming preseason All-America teams for men's college basketball since 1986 and women's basketball since 1994.

"The preseason teams for basketball are popular so it only makes sense to do the same for football," said Barry Bedlan, director of AP Sports products. "AP prides itself on maintaining some of the richest college football traditions, whether it's the longest-running poll of its kind or the marquee All-America team. This extends that reach."

The AP Top 25 preseason poll and the preseason All-America team will be announced on AP lines to customers at 12 p.m. ET on Aug. 21 and 22, respectively, as well as posted on AP's college football site, collegefootball.ap.org, and the AP News app. AP will provide analysis and details across those platforms, plus a weekly All-America Watch feature by College Football Writer Ralph Russo.

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 also will get paginated pages designed by GateHouse Media's Center for News & Design that highlight the preseason poll results for use in print, each with space available for local advertising or content.

All 1,119 of the weekly AP polls released since 1936 have been tabulated to determine the 100 top teams of all time, listed at collegefootball.ap.org/ap-poll-all-time. The all-time list was first released last summer and was updated after last season.

A panel of more than 60 sports writers and broadcasters 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 football's 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 men's and women's basketball.

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