The Washington Huskies are ranked 25th in the preseason Associated Press college football poll, the same slot they occupied in the first USA Today/Coaches poll released two weeks ago. This marks the first time since 2003 that the Huskies will open the season as a ranked team by AP. Five other Pac-12 schools made the Top 25, topped by No. 3 Oregon.
Washington received 130 points from a panel of media experts, four fewer than the 134 that No. 24 Missouri collected.
Following Oregon at No. 3 (one first-place vote, 1,334 points), the other Pac-12 schools in the Top 25 are No. 7 UCLA (1,106), No. 11 Stanford (885), No. 15 USC (626) and No. 19 Arizona State (357).
Florida State earned the top spot overall with 57 first-place votes and 1,496 points, followed by Alabama (1, 1.361). Trailing Oregon (1, 1,334) were No. 4 Oklahoma (1, 1,324) and No. 5 Ohio State (1,207).
Under new head coach Chris Petersen, the Huskies open Aug. 30 at Hawaii and then play four consecutive games in Seattle against Eastern Washington (Sept. 6), Illinois (Sept. 13), Georgia State (Sept. 20) and Stanford (Sept. 27).
In addition to the Cardinal, the Huskies play three ranked Pac-12 teams from The Associated Press poll: at Oregon (Oct. 18), vs. Arizona State (Oct. 25) and UCLA (Nov. 8).
Under Steve Sarkisian, now head coach at USC, Washington finished 2013 unranked in the Associated Press and USA Today/Coaches polls.
1 Comment
I don’t think the Huskies even make the top 25 if Coach Pete wasn’t here since they lost their prime offensive players. And if he stayed at Boise State they’d probably would have made it instead.