First USA TODAY Coaches Poll Released Tuesday, WVU Begins Unranked

There are a lot of polls to keep track of in the world of college football, and one of the biggest is the weekly USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll. 65 coaches at the FBS level form the panel of voters, chosen randomly among FBS head coaches in the American Football Coaches Association who indicate they are willing to participate.

The poll is tabulated after each coach involved in the voting submits their Top 25, with a first-place earning 25 points and every other place earning reverse points all the way down to the 25th team. The teams with the highest number of overall votes comprise the poll.

The first Coaches Poll of the 2021-22 season was announced Tuesday afternoon, and West Virginia, unsurprisingly, was not ranked. The Mountaineers did, however, earn four votes from the first poll.

Alabama was two first-place votes away from consensus status, ranking first with 1,621 points and 63 first-place selections. Clemson, (1,508 points), Oklahoma (1,481 points), Ohio State (1,435 points) and Georgia (1,386 points) round out the Top 5. Oklahoma received the only two first-place selections that Alabama didn’t.

Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Iowa State, North Carolina and Cincinnati round out the Top 10. Aside from Oklahoma and Iowa State, Texas (19th) and Oklahoma State (22nd) round out the Big 12 teams ranked in the first poll.

The SEC leads the way with six teams in the Top 25, the Big 10 features five team and the ACC and Pac 12 both feature three teams. Cincinnati, from the AAC, is the highest-ranked Group of Five school in the poll.

Utah (145 points), Northwestern (120) and Arizona State (90) round out the top three unranked teams. WVU, with four points, ranks as the 48th team in the poll. TCU (48 points) is the only other Big 12 school to receive votes.

For the full list of Top 25 teams in the Coaches Poll, you can go here.