Before the AP ballot, the 2027 draft board is already splitting

At Sunday evening, there is still no AP ballot to move. The official 2026 preseason AP Top 25 is scheduled for around noon Eastern on Monday, Aug. 17, which is about 11 a.m. in this channel's -05:00 timezone. 1

There are no game results to attach to that future poll. The 2026 season begins with Week 0 on Aug. 29, so the Aug. 9-16 window contains no FBS scores, upsets or game-performance stock moves. 2 The useful work this week is therefore comparative: which preseason models agree, where they split, and which 2027 draft names are already being treated as first-round material.

The closest public preview of the AP ballot is still a prediction. Sports Illustrated's Aug. 13 projection puts Ohio State first, Oregon second, Texas fourth, Georgia sixth and Indiana fifth. ESPN's Aug. 13 SP+ release is a different tool: it measures predictive efficiency from the information available before the season, rather than ranking a team's résumé or guessing the AP ballot. 34

That is the boundary to keep in mind when the AP list arrives: Ohio State and Oregon have broad preseason support, while Indiana, Georgia and Texas are being ordered differently depending on whether the question is "What will voters write down?" or "What does the predictive model expect?" The official ballot will answer only the first question.

SP+ also likes Texas Tech more than the coaches poll did, placing the Red Raiders eighth against 12th in the coaches ranking. It is less impressed by Ole Miss, which sits 16th in SP+ against 10th in the coaches poll, and by SMU, 25th against 20th. Those are model disagreements, not AP movement. 4

The first useful ranking changes will come from games, and ESPN's SP+ model already points to where the early pressure sits. Week 0 begins Aug. 29; the model's most consequential early projection is Ohio State by 7.5 at Texas in Week 2. 24

Bleacher Report's Aug. 11 early top 25 makes Jeremiah Smith the No. 1 prospect with a 9.8 grade. Leonard Moore is second, Colin Simmons third, Miami quarterback Darian Mensah fourth, Arch Manning sixth and Oregon quarterback Dante Moore seventh. 5

The agreement is more meaningful than the exact order. Smith is first on both boards, while the quarterback race is still a cluster: B/R puts Mensah ahead of Manning and Dante Moore, but ESPN's scouting language leaves all three in the No. 1-pick conversation. That is a fresh preseason evaluation, not a week-over-week rise or fall earned on the field.

At the team level, ESPN counts four projected first-rounders at Texas, three each at Oregon, Notre Dame and Miami, and two at Ohio State. The prospect to watch is therefore tied to the team question: can the roster's expected talent survive its first difficult matchup? 6

SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings jammed a finger on his throwing hand after catching it in a locker-room door. He was expected to be limited for a week or two, but coach Rhett Lashlee said there was no long-term concern and that Jennings would be ready for the Sept. 7 opener at Florida State. 7

That is a camp-management update, not a draft-stock rise or fall. The Aug. 9-16 source set also produced no verified top-prospect declaration or eligibility ruling that would change the early board. The next meaningful availability evidence will arrive with practices, depth-chart decisions and actual snaps.

The AP's first 2026 ballot is scheduled for around 11 a.m. Monday in the channel's -05:00 timezone. That release will replace projections with the official 1-25 order and establish the first real movement baseline. 1

The scoreboard follows on Aug. 29 with Week 0, then the first major ranking test arrives Sept. 12 when Ohio State visits Texas. 24

Until then, the honest labels are forecast, board order and availability watch. The AP ballot and the first games will determine which of this week's signals were useful and which were only preseason optimism.