Playboy Reveals First College-Sportswriter Preseason Top 25

Nation’s Best Student Sportswriters Vote on Top 25 College Football Teams

NEW YORK, Aug. 20 /TMRZoo.com/ — The Playboy All America team has been a fixture on the college football landscape since 1957. Now PlayboyU.com, Playboy’s free site mixing collegiate journalism, entertainment, and cross-campus dialogue, has polled college sportswriters and editors (playboyu.com/footballpoll) from student newspapers at top universities nationwide to compile the “Playboy College Sportswriter Top 25 Poll,” the first-ever survey of its kind. The feature is available for public viewing on playboyu.com/footballpoll.

“We’re glad to have students from so many great schools participate in this inaugural poll,” said Gary Cole, Playboy magazine’s sports editor and the man who chooses the prestigious Playboy All America Team. “It’s great to be able to add the opinions of these college journalists to Playboy’s coverage of college football and college sports in general … even if their ultimate pick of Georgia over my preseason number one, Oklahoma, is dead wrong.”

Indeed, the college sportswriters picked the University of Georgia No. 1; the Bulldogs narrowly edged out the University of Southern California. Rounding out the top five are Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Florida. The 31 student-pollsters include representatives from nearly every major Division I conference, as well as the Ivy League. Student journalists from the University of Florida, University of Georgia, USC, UCLA, The Ohio State University, Harvard University, University of Notre Dame, and 24 other schools submitted ballots for the preseason top 25 college football teams. The journalists will be on PlayboyU.com debating their votes with fellow college students (see below for complete list of participating journalists).

Playboy U is the online destination for Playboy’s collegiate content, including the Playboy All America teams, guides to student life, college bar reviews, college mascot interviews, and more. The site also offers a glimpse into the world of Playboy with exclusive party coverage, videos, and contributions from Playboy personalities. Additionally, it includes a community of college students who generate content and dialogue on subjects like relationships, pop culture, and getting the most out of the college experience.

Playboy’s College Sportswriters Top 25

The Pollsters:

Mary Moore Albl
Boise State University
Sports Editor, The Arbiter

Andrew Bartholomew
Yale University
Sports Editor, Yale Daily News

Cory Bennett
Cornell University
Sports Editor,
The Cornell Daily Sun

Ben Breiner
University of Wisconsin
Sports Editor, The Daily Cardinal

John Clayton
Syracuse University
Sports Editor, The Daily Orange

Corey DeMoss
University of Oklahoma
Sports Editor,
The Oklahoma Daily

Rustin Dodd
The University of Kansas
Sports Editor,
The University Daily Kansan

Brian Eller
Penn State
Football Editor,
The Daily Collegian

Michael Fitzpatrick
University of Georgia
Sports Editor, The Red and Black

Brian Gawthrop
West Virginia State University
Associate Sports Editor,
The Daily Athenaeum

Lenny Goldman
University of Missouri
Sports Editor, The Maneater

Matt Gottfried
The Ohio State University
Editor in Chief, The Lantern

Andrew Joseph Greif
University of Oregon
Sports Editor,
Oregon Daily Emerald

David Gurian-Peck
University of Pennsylvania
Sports Editor,
The Daily Pennsylvanian

David Harding
The University of Cincinnati
Sports Editor, The News Record

Jennifer Hart
Princeton University
Executive Editor for Sports,
The Daily Princetonian

David R. Henry
The University of Texas at Austin
Interim Sports Editor,
The Daily Texan

Adi Joseph
The University of Maryland
Sports Editor, The Diamondback

Gavin LaPaille
University of Louisville
Sports Editor, Louisville Cardinal

Eric Lindsey
University of Kentucky
Sports Columnist and Managing
Editor, The Kentucky Kernel

Dixon McPhillips
Harvard University
Associate Sports Editor,
The Harvard Crimson

Brad Merritt
University of Tennessee
Sports Editor, The Daily Beacon

Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz
University of Southern California
Sports Editor, Daily Trojan

Brian Murphy
University of Central Florida
Sports Editor,
Central Florida Future

Dan Murphy
University of Notre Dame
Sports Editor, The Observer

Todd Orodenker
Temple University
Sports Editor, The Temple News

Tony F. Pizza
The University of Utah
Sports Editor,
The Daily Utah Chronicle

Sarah Salam
UCLA
Sports Editor, Daily Bruin

Nate Sandals
University of Michigan
Managing Sports Editor,
The Michigan Daily

Brian Steele
University of Florida
Sports Editor, The Daily Alligator

Bobby Stover
The University of Arizona
Sports Editor,
Arizona Daily Wildcat

About Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

Playboy is one of the most recognized and popular consumer brands in the world. Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a media and lifestyle company that markets the brand through a wide range of media properties and licensing initiatives. The company publishes Playboy magazine in the United States and abroad and creates content for distribution via television networks, websites, mobile platforms, DVD and radio. Through licensing agreements, the Playboy brand appears in more than 100 countries on a wide range of consumer products, entertainment locations and retail stores.