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The AP Top 25 was released Monday. Here's my preseason ballot, which is designed to predict what I think might happen this season.

In other words, the top four teams double as my teams for the College Football Playoff.

A couple general truisms about my preseason poll:

» I have a system — kind of like power rankings — that informs my baseline thinking and then is compared against various metrics to comprise the preseason rankings.

» I'm less prone than most voters to put Group of Five teams in my preseason rankings. This changes as the season goes on, and it's worth noting that in 2017 I voted Central Florida my postseason No. 1 over Alabama.

1. Clemson: The defending national champions may have lost the nation’s best collection of defensive linemen, but they return one of the nation’s top quarterbacks, Trevor Lawrence, to helm what could be — no exaggeration — a 50-point-per-game offense. The Tigers’ defense will be average because their offense will be out of sight.