The Associated Press All-America team, the longest-running annual honor roll of the nation's top college football players, will be announced Dec. 10. The AP also will name all-conference teams for all five major football conferences starting Dec. 3, and all-America teams for the lower divisions starting Dec. 11.
The first AP All-America team was selected in 1925, a decade before the first Heisman Trophy.
AP College Football Writer Ralph Russo and a panel of 16 college football reporters who are among the voters in the weekly AP Top 25 poll will select the All-America players for each position to first, second and third teams.
The same panel selects the preseason and midseason AP All-America teams. The players are from Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
“With so many top-notch athletes in college football, it’s never easy to select the best of the best but it is AP’s honor to oversee one of the longest-running traditions in college sports,” said Barry Bedlan, AP’s sports products manager.
Along with the honorary teams, AP will name its Player of the Year on Dec. 6 and Coach of the Year on Dec. 17. A list of the top vote-getters for each award will be disclosed the day before the announcement of each winner.
The AP panel also will select the first Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year, which recognizes football players who have overcome injury, illness or other personal challenges. The winner will be announced on Dec. 18.
The all-conference teams will be decided by regional panels of journalists who cover the respective conference and teams.
The teams will be announced as follows:
Dec. 3: Southeastern Conference
Dec. 4: Atlantic Coast Conference
Dec. 5: Big Ten
Dec. 6: Pacific-12
Dec. 7: Big 12
Dec. 11: Football Championship Subdivision
Dec. 12: Division II
Dec. 13: Division III
Dec. 14: National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
All announcements will be made at noon ET on AP lines to customers, as well as posted on AP’s college football page, the APNews college football hub and the AP News app. AP will provide analysis and details across those platforms.
AP customers can leverage the popularity of the AP poll to grow digital traffic and new revenue through AP’s locally branded College Football Digital News Experience. Newspapers that subscribe to AP Sports also will get paginated pages by Dec. 5 designed by Adams Publishing Group’s Big Sky News Design that highlight the college football bowl lineup for use in print, each with space available for local advertising or content.
The final regular-season AP Top 25 poll will be released Sunday, Dec. 2. A national panel of 61 sports writers and broadcasters of AP-affiliated media who cover college football decide the 82-year-old poll. The final AP Top 25 will be released as soon as all their ballots are submitted after the end of the College Football Playoff championship game on the night of Jan. 7.
All 1,135 of the weekly AP polls released since 1936 have been tabulated to determine the 100 top teams of all time, listed here.
Follow the poll and related sports coverage on Facebook and Twitter.
Contact
For media inquiries:
Lauren Easton
Director of Media Relations
The Associated Press
212-621-7005
leaston@ap.org
For sponsorship or revenue opportunities:
Barry Bedlan
Deputy Director of Sports Products
The Associated Press
972-677-2270
bbedlan@ap.org
