Alabama Goes Wire to Wire at No. 1 in Super 16 Poll

December 2, 2018 by Courtesy FWAA

NOTE: CollegeFootballPoll.com's Dave Congrove is among the voters.

Alabama went wire-to-wire in the Super 16 poll, holding down the No. 1 spot in the pre-season all the way to the conclusion today. In the final poll Alabama received 49 of 51 first-place votes. The Crimson Tide finished with a 13-0 record, followed in the poll by two other unbeatens, No. 2 Clemson (13-0) and No. 3 Notre Dame (12-0).

The major change from a week ago was Georgia slipping out of the top four teams after the loss to Alabama in the SEC title game. The Bulldogs were replaced by No. 4 Oklahoma, which won the Big 12 title with a victory over Texas in the Big 12 title game on Saturday. George fell only one spot to fifth. Ohio State stayed at No. 6 after beating Northwestern in the Big Ten title game. UCF (13-0) also finished unbeaten and stayed at No. 7.

After that, there was only minor shuffling of teams in the poll. The same 16 teams ranked this week were ranked last week.

The SEC led all conferences with five teams, followed by the Big Ten and Big 12 with three each. The Pac-12 had two teams, with the ACC, American and Independents one each.

Congrove's Ballot

Congrove's ballot this week was submitted as follows (last week's rank in parenthesis).
1. Alabama (1)
2. Clemson (2)
3. Notre Dame (3)
4.. Oklahoma (6)
5. Ohio State (5)
5. Georgia (4)
7. UCF (7)
8. Michigan (8)
9. Washington State (9)
10. Washington (10)
11. Syracuse (11)
12. Penn State (12)
13. Fresno State (15)
14. Florida (9-3) (NR)
15. West Virginia (16)
16. LSU (NR)

Last week, Congrove had Utah at 13 and Boise State at 14. Both dropped out after losses to Washington and Fresno State,respectively.

About the Poll

The poll was established at the conclusion of the 2013 season by long-time partners, the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the National Football Foundation (NFF). Voters rank the top 16 teams in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, and the results will be released every Monday of the 2018 season; the individual votes of all members will also be made public. The pollsters consist of FWAA writers and College Football Hall of Famers who were selected to create a balanced-geographical perspective.

FWAA-NFF Super 16 Poll
(For games through December 1, 2018)

Others receiving votes:

Texas A&M (26), Mississippi State (23), Fresno State (23), Syracuse (19), Utah (18), Missouri (8), Ole Miss (4), Oregon (4), Auburn (3), Northwestern (2), NC State (2), Boise State (1), Miami, Fla (1).