Georgia will begin its drive for an unprecedented college football championship three-peat as the No. 1 team in The Associated Press preseason Top 25.
The Bulldogs received 60 of 63 first-place votes in the poll released Monday to easily outpoint No. 2 Michigan, which received two first-place votes and has its best preseason rankings since being No. 2 in 1991. The Wolverines’ Big Ten rival, Ohio State, is No. 3 with one first-place vote.
Two more Southeastern Conference teams join Georgia in the top five. Alabama is No. 4, the Crimson Tide’s lowest preseason ranking in more than a decade, and LSU starts at No. 5, its best preseason ranking since 2016.
The Bulldogs have won the last two national titles while going 29-1, but this will be only the second time in program history they have been preseason No. 1. The first was in 2008.
Georgia started the 2021 season No. 5, before going on to win its first national title since 1980. The Bulldogs followed up with a perfect season in 2022 after being preseason No. 3.
The Bulldogs have had 25 players drafted by NFL teams the last two years, including quarterback Stetson Bennett and All-America defensive tackle Jalen Carter this past April. Coach Kirby Smart has built a program to rival Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty so voters are now giving Georgia the Crimson Tide treatment.
Alabama had been preseason No. 1 each of the last two seasons, and five of the previous seven. Clemson was preseason No. 1 in the other two seasons, making Georgia the first team other than the Tide or Tigers to be preseason No. 1 since Ohio State in 2015.
Alabama is also the last team to win back-to-back major college football national championships, doing so in 2011 and ’12.
No team has won three straight national titles during the AP poll era, which dates to 1936.
IOWA STATE: A defensive lineman accused of wagering on his team’s games, including one where he bet against the Cyclones, has left the program, the school confirmed.
Isaiah Lee, who started all 12 games last season, was among the athletes charged last week in connection with the state’s investigation into illegal sports wagering at Iowa State and Iowa.
Lee was charged with tampering with records for allegedly disguising his identity to place online sports wagers, according to court documents.
Lee is alleged to have made 115 bets for $885 on the FanDuel mobile app. Among them were 12 on Iowa State football games, including one money-line bet against the Cyclones against Texas in 2021. ISU won 30-7, and Lee made one tackle.
BASEBALL
NORTHWESTERN: Three former members of Northwestern University’s baseball coaching staff filed a lawsuit against the school, saying they lost their jobs for trying to report bullying and derogatory abuse by the team’s head coach, who has since been fired.
The ex-staffers say Jim Foster’s coaching was rife with toxic and volatile behavior throughout the 2022-23 season, and that the school protected Foster after they filed a human resources complaint against him.
Northwestern says the lawsuit suit “lacks merit” and vowed to fight it in court, and Foster did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Foster was sacked on July 13, just three days after football coach Pat Fitzgerald was dismissed because of a hazing scandal. The university faces more than a dozen lawsuits for hazing, racism and bullying in its football — and now baseball — programs.
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