Alabama is the preseason No. 1. So what good is that?

It seems that a couple of things about this Monday don’t particularly exhilarate Nick Saban.

The Alabama coach doesn’t seem to care much about the solar eclipse. He appears even less excited about his team sitting atop the preseason AP Top 25 poll.

Though the Crimson Tide was the overwhelming choice at No. 1 for the second consecutive season and the fourth time in eight years, Saban doesn’t put much stock in such things.

“I appreciate the fact that people acknowledge the team but, at the same time, this team has a lot ot prove,” he said at a news conference last week. “And until you do it, you basically haven’t proved much of anything.”

Saban has good reason to be skeptical — the last three times the Crimson Tide began at No. 1, the team failed to win the national championship. The 2004 USC Trojans were the most recent team to start and finish on top of AP poll.

The Associated Press makes it clear the initial rankings, determined by media voters across the nation, are merely a “snapshot of consensus” and “an educated guess.”

Over the last decade, the wire service said, 61.6% of teams began and ended the season in the Top 25. Only about half of the preseason Top 10 finished in that elite group.

This time around, the contenders include No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Florida State, No. 4 USC and defending champion Clemson at No. 5.

If nothing else, Monday’s release increases the buzz around several early matchups. Alabama faces Florida State on Sept. 2 and Ohio State hosts No. 7 Oklahoma the following week.

Saban says he is focused on the more-immediate task of getting his team through training camp. He suspected the players would want to watch Monday’s eclipse but that he might skip it.

“I watch the Weather Channel every day, they’re already saying what it’s going to look like in every city in America,” he told reporters on Saturday. “So what’s going to be significant?”

david.wharton@latimes.com

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