How the Coaches Poll works

USA TODAY Sports totals the points a team receives across every ballot. The team with the highest total is No. 1, the next-highest is No. 2, and the order continues through No. 25.

First-place votes are only part of that total. A team can receive fewer first-place votes and still rank higher if it appears more consistently near the top of the other ballots.

Teams that appear on ballots without finishing in the Top 25 are listed as “others receiving votes,” along with the points they earned.

The ballots come from a panel of FBS head coaches, recently around 65, chosen by the American Football Coaches Association. Every conference is represented, and the panel changes from year to year as coaches join and leave the sport.

Coaches vote on their own programs’ peers, which is the poll’s defining trait: it reflects how the people running FBS teams see the sport rather than how the media covers it.

Individual ballots are confidential during the season. USA TODAY Sports publishes each coach’s ballot only for the final regular-season poll, released before the bowls and the playoff.

That is why this site can show every AP voter’s ballot each week but not the Coaches Poll ballots.

A preseason poll comes out in August. In-season polls are released on Sundays after the weekend’s games, and a final poll follows the College Football Playoff National Championship.