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The Associated Press released its first college football poll of the new season on Sunday with defending national champion Florida State topping the charts. The Seminoles received 1,496 points and 57 first place votes to start 2014 the exact same way they ended 2013 - ranked #1.
#1 FSU headlines a crop of three teams Boston College will face in 2014 from the preseason poll, two of which are at home. #15 USC plays in Chestnut Hill on September 13th with #16 Clemson coming to town on October 18th. BC plays at Florida State on November 22nd, the second to last week of the year.
In addition to FSU and Clemson, North Carolina ranked 23rd and four additional conference teams from the ACC received votes. Duke received 71 points to lead the unranked schools with newcomer Louisville receiving 48 points. Virginia Tech and Miami rounded out the list with 26 and 16 points respectively. The Eagles have games against the Cardinals and Hokies.
Notre Dame, while not an ACC school in football, ranked #17 to start the season.
Florida State did not receive a clean sweep of first place votes as #2 Alabama received one, #3 Oregon received one, and #4 Oklahoma received one. If this held true, the four would be the first qualifiers for the College Football Playoff.
Certain teams are a near lock for receiving votes to start the season. Ohio State lost the final two games of last season to finish the year 12-2 but begin this year as the fourth ranked team in the land. Georgia finished the year unranked and begin the season ranked 12th. And Notre Dame always seems to make an appearance in the rankings, even if they just threw four guys off their team for academic dishonesty.