Ohio State No. 5 in 1st 2014 AP Top 25 Poll

Two weeks shy of the kickoff on a new season and two weeks removed from being the newly minted No. 6 team in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, Ohio State finds themselves No. 5 in the country.

The awarders of one of two national championships of record in college football – though you'll be hard pressed to find a future national champion who isn't the survivor of the sport's new playoff – the Associated Press' voters named Ohio State the No. 5 team in the country following Florida State, Alabama, Oregon, and Oklahoma.

The Buckeyes are joined in the Top 25 by Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska representing the Big Ten. The Buckeyes' big out of conference opponent this season, Virginia Tech, is not ranked in the first AP Top 25 of the year.

Though the efficacy of the poll has always been debated and with the College Football Playoff threatening to further marginalize it, fans aren't the only ones wondering if the poll's outlived its utility. Longtime voter (and Friend of the Holy Land) Doug Lesmerises of Cleveland.com has been openly wondering what he has to do to continue caring about its existence and his participation:

Polls are for fun. Polls are not something I'll be dedicating myself to for a couple hours every Saturday night or Sunday morning while trying to beat the insane AP deadline of 11 a.m. Sunday, less than 12 hours after many of the best games end.

I'll use the same methods. I'll just take far less time. Why did I put Baylor No. 11 and Clemson No. 12? I don't know. Felt right in the moment.

It should be interesting to see if other voters take the same approach, as well as studying how much the College Football Playoff selection committees' own seven round voting Top 25 mirrors the results when those begin in late October.

Here's the AP Top 25 in whole: