Opta FCS Football unveils preseason top 25 rankings for 49th season

Opta FCS Football has opened the 49th FCS season with a preseason top 25 that reads less like a routine poll and more like an early referendum on how the subdivision is shifting. With the 2026 college football season set to begin in August, the rankings land at a moment when roster retention, conference depth and realignment fallout already matter as much as spring optimism.

The buzz around the list is part of the point. NCAA.com has already posted a way-too-early top 25 for 2026, a sign that preseason debate is moving well beyond fall camp and into the national conversation months before the first kickoff. In a sport where the playoff path is often shaped by seeding, at-large positioning and strength of schedule, the first rankings snapshot can hint at which programs are built to absorb turnover and which ones may slip if retention goes sideways.

Stats Perform has spent years making that conversation stick. The company says it provides weekly FCS Top 25 coverage, weekly player awards and an annual awards banquet hosted every January. It expanded its FCS initiative in 2015 to include a preseason and postseason All-America team, national players of the week, award watch lists and season-ending honors, turning the subdivision into a year-round content lane rather than a once-a-week poll stop. That matters in a sport where national attention is often filtered through the FCS community itself, not only through a championship bracket.

The historical benchmark still looms large. In 2015, Stats Perform’s preseason FCS Top 25 pegged North Dakota State as the overwhelming No. 1 after the Bison had won four straight national championships, a reminder that preseason status in Fargo, North Dakota, has long carried real weight. That kind of positioning shapes expectations for seed quality, home-field advantage and the margin for error once the bracket begins to tighten.

Opta’s broader football data platform also helps explain why the rankings travel beyond traditional subdivision circles. Stats Perform says Opta is used across broadcasters, websites, apps, news outlets, sportsbooks and fantasy games, giving an FCS poll a reach that extends well past the usual offseason discussion. In a year when every conference is trying to prove its depth, the preseason top 25 is not just a list. It is the first map of who might control the 2026 race.