The Florida Gators will start the college football season Saturday at Camping World Stadium against Miami. They will also start the year in prime position to make a push for their first College Football Playoff berth.

The Gators were ranked No. 8 in the preseason Associated Press college football poll, the highest ranked team in the state. And with games against No. 3 Georgia, No. 6 LSU and No. 16 Auburn, there are plenty of chances to build a playoff-worthy resume.

Florida is coming off a surprise 10-win season in Dan Mullen's first year as head coach that ended with a victory over Michigan in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. The Gators have high expectations to make another push for a SEC East crown and enter the playoff conversation with returning starting quarterback Feleipe Franks gaining confidence from last year's performance.

The UCF Knights will once again start as the highest-rated team outside of the power six conferences. UCF will start the year ranked No. 17. The highest ranked team outside the power six conferences in the College Football Playoff Standings receives an automatic invite to a New Year's Six bowl game. The Knights have achieved that to head to the Peach Bowl two years ago and the Fiesta Bowl last year.

But UCF has struggled to break through into the playoff because they play in the American Athletic Conference. Unlike the Gators in the SEC, the Knights have only one opponent ranked in the preseason top-25 -- non-conference foe No. 25 Stanford, who is due to travel to Orlando on Sept. 14.

UCF opens its season August 29 against Florida A&M at Spectrum Stadium.

Florida's opponent for the Camping World Kickoff, Miami, received the 29th most points in the poll. Florida State did not receive any votes in the initial poll coming off their first season without a bowl game in nearly four decades.

The defending national champion Clemson Tigers are No. 1 in the poll. It is their first preseason No. 1 rankingi n program history. The Tigers won the program’s second national title in three seasons behind freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence in January. Clemson now can claim equal standing with Alabama at the top of the sport.

The Crimson Tide, coming off a 44-16 loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff championship, is No. 2. Clemson received 52 first-place votes and Alabama received the other 10 from the media. Clemson snaps a record-tying string of three straight years in which Alabama was preseason No. 1.

Georgia, Alabama’s Southeastern Conference rival, is No. 3, followed by No. 4 Oklahoma and No. 5 Ohio State.

Clemson’s rise under coach Dabo Swinney has been uncommon in college football. The school won the national championship in 1981, but mostly it had resided on a tier well below the traditional national powers. Clemson football was usually good and sometimes excellent, but never this.

Last season’s championship made Clemson just the 12th school with at least three AP titles since the poll started in 1936.

The Tigers enter 2019 with a 15-game winning streak and eight straight double-digit victory seasons. Since 2015, when they lost the national championship game to Alabama, the Tigers are 55-4.

Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty, with five national titles in a 10-year span, has finally met its match. The Tide is also 55-4 in the last four seasons.

Clemson and Alabama have split the last four national championships, played in the last four playoffs and are poised to make it five straight. This will be the third time since 2016 the Tigers and Tide have started the season Nos. 1 and 2 in the Top 25. Beginning with 2015, when Alabama and Clemson occupied the top two spots in the last four AP polls of the season, the Tide and Tigers have been Nos. 1 and 2 in some order 22 times.

Last year’s Clemson team was highlighted by a defensive line that had three starters selected in the first round of the NFL draft, and a fourth taken in round four.

The Tigers have some rebuilding to do on that side of the ball, but recent history suggests reinforcements are ready. This year Lawrence and the offense will be the headliner. The first freshman quarterback in more than three decades to lead a team to a national championship, Lawrence will be joined by star receivers Tee Higgins (12 touchdowns) and Justyn Ross (nine touchdowns) and game-breaking running back Travis Etienne (8.1 yards per carry).

Alabama returns quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, and an array of weapons, too. As a new season starts, college football fans best be prepared for Tide vs. Tigers V.