Hurricanes Ranked 3rd in AP Preseason Football Poll
Aug. 16, 2003
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) – The Miami Hurricanes will begin the 2003 college football season ranked third in both major national rankings as the Associated Press released its preseason poll Saturday morning. The Hurricanes, who have played in the Bowl Championship Series National Championship game the last two seasons, are ranked third behind No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Ohio State in both surveys.
Miami, which started its 2002 season ranked atop both polls, started its run to the 2001 national title ranked second by AP in the preseason. The Hurricanes return 10 starters from last year’s squad and face a difficult schedule that features Florida at the Orange Bowl on September 6 (8 p.m. ET, ABC), No. 13 Florida State in Tallahassee on October 11 (time to be announced), No. 9 Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. on November 1 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), No. 12 Tennessee at the Orange Bowl on November 8 (time to be announced), and No. 10 Pittsburgh in the Steel City on November 29 (ABC, time TBA).
The Hurricanes will begin the season ranked among the top 10 for the eighth time in 13 seasons, and UM begins among the top five for the seventh time since 1991. Three times Miami has been No. 1 in the preseason poll – in 1990, 1992 and 2002.
Oklahoma got 32 first-place votes and 1,573 points to Ohio State’s 27 firsts and 1,532 points from the 65 sports writers and broadcasters on the AP panel. Rounding out the Top 10 are Miami (two first-place votes), Michigan (two), Texas, Auburn (one), Kansas State (one), Southern California, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh.
Oklahoma, which won its seventh AP title in 2000, also was the No. 1 preseason pick in the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll, released July 31. The coaches had the same top three teams as the AP. The Sooners are the preseason No. 1 for the first time since 1987. They have won the title four times after opening the season atop the AP poll. For the sixth time in the past seven years, the defending champion did not start the next season at the top of the poll.
Leading off the second 10 is Georgia, followed by Tennessee, Florida State, LSU, Maryland, North Carolina State, Washington, Virginia, Purdue and Notre Dame. Wisconsin, Arizona State, Colorado State, Oklahoma State (last ranked in the preseason in 1985) and TCU round out the poll.
The first regular-season AP poll will be released on Monday, Sept. 1.
The Hurricanes begin the 2003 season Thursday, August 28, against Louisiana Tech in Shreveport, La., in a game to be nationally televised by ESPN (7:30 p.m. ET).
For ticket information Hurricane football, contact the UM Ticket Office at (305) 284-2263 or 1-800-GO-CANES.
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