NEW YORK — Arkansas is ranked 15th in the Associated Press preseason poll released Saturday.
It is the school's highest ranking since 1990 when it was picked as 14th. Last season, the Razorbacks were ranked 17th and went on to play in the Sugar Bowl, finishing the year ranked 12th.
Oklahoma, meanwhile, starts out top-ranked in The Associated Press college football poll for the 10th time, more than any program in the country.
The defending Big 12 champions received 36 of 60 first-place votes and 1,464 points in the Top 25 released Saturday.
Auburn, last season’s national champion, will start the season No. 23, one spot behind where it began in 2010.
If the rankings are any indication, the national title race could be a scramble.
No. 2 Alabama, one of a record eight Southeastern Conference teams in the preseason poll, wasn’t far behind OU, receiving 17 first-place votes and 1,439 points.
No. 3 Oregon got four first-place votes, No. 4 LSU received one and No. 5 Boise State got two.
Florida State was No. 6, the Seminoles’ best preseason ranking since starting the 2004 season at No. 5.
Heisman Trophy favorite Andrew Luck and Stanford were No. 7.
Rounding out the top 10 are Oklahoma’s Big 12 rivals, Texas A&M (No. 8) and Oklahoma State (No. 9), and Nebraska (No. 10), in its first season in the Big Ten after leaving the Big 12.
No. 16 Notre Dame is ranked for the first time since early November 2009.
South Carolina (No. 12), Arkansas (No. 15), Georgia (No. 19), Mississippi State (No. 20) and Florida (No. 22) give the SEC more teams in the preseason poll than any previous conference.