Crimson Tide tops AP football poll

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Alabama will start this season where it ended last season.

The Crimson Tide is on top.

Coach Nick Saban has the Tide rolling the way Bear Bryant did in his day, first in The Associated Press preseason poll for the first time since 1978.

Alabama received 54 of 60 first-place votes from the media panel and 1,491 points to easily outdistance second-ranked Ohio State in the Top 25 released Saturday.

The Buckeyes, who have been ranked no lower than 11th in the last eight preseason polls, received three first-place votes.

Boise State is third, its best preseason ranking, following another undefeated season. Underdogs no more, the Broncos even received one first-place vote.

Florida, Alabama’s Southeastern Conference rival, is fourth. Fifth-ranked Texas received a first-place vote.

The rest of the top 10 has TCU sixth, followed by Oklahoma, which received a first-place vote, Nebraska, Iowa and Virginia Tech.

The 10th-ranked Hokies face Boise State at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins, on Labor Day night in the season’s first huge game.

As for Alabama, Bryant was coach the last time the Crimson Tide was the AP’s preseason No. 1. The Tide started and finished that 1978 season on top of the rankings, the first of two straight national championships for Alabama. The only other time Alabama was preseason No. 1 was 1966, when Bear’s boys were coming off back-to-back national championships.

Saban’s Tide, led by Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, will try to make Alabama the first program to win back-to-back AP titles three times. Oklahoma and Nebraska also have done it twice.

But please don’t call Alabama the defending champion — at least not in front of its coach.

“What was accomplished by last year’s team has nothing to do with this year’s team. The players have to understand that,” said Saban, who in three seasons has fully restored Alabama’s status as an elite program. “This team has to develop an image, an identity of its own by its performance. What was accomplished last year is just a standard for somebody else to top.

“Complacency is why the mighty fall.”

Saban has been trying to downplay this team’s No. 1 worthiness since the morning after the Tide beat Texas 37-21 at the Rose Bowl to win the BCS championship.