BALTIMORE, MD – The Johns Hopkins football team has earned its second preseason ranking of the 2024 season as the Blue Jays are ranked eighth in the recently-released D3football.com Preseason Top 25.  Previously, the Blue Jays had drawn a number seven preseason nod from Lindy's.
 
Johns Hopkins earned 393 points in the poll of 25 coaches, Sports Information Directors and members of the media.  The number eight preseason ranking matches the Blue Jays' showing in final 2023 D3football.com Poll.  Since the D3football.com Poll debuted in 2003, the number eight ranking is also the second highest preseason ranking the Blue Jays have drawn; Johns Hopkins was ranked sixth in the 2019 preseason poll after advancing to the NCAA Semifinals in 2018.
 
Johns Hopkins is one of two Centennial Conference teams in the D3football.com Preseason top 25 as Muhlenberg checks in at #21.  In addition to the highly-anticipated game against the Mules on November 2, the Blue Jays will play two non-conference games against teams that qualified for the NCAA Playoffs last season.  The season-opening game against Ithaca will come against a Bomber squad that advanced to the second round of the playoffs a year ago and is ranked 20^th in the D3football.com Preseason Poll.  The Hopkins-Ithaca game is one of just three week-one games (Sept. 5-7) that will feature two teams ranked in the top 25 in the preseason.
 
A week after the opener at Ithaca, the Blue Jays will travel to Christopher Newport, which won the New Jersey Athletic Conference title last season and dropped a narrow decision to eventual NCAA Semifinalist Randolph-Macon in the first round of the playoffs.
 
Johns Hopkins posted a 12-1 record, including a perfect 6-0 mark in the Centennial Conference, and advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals for the third time in program history last season.  The 2024 season will be the first for Dan Wodicka '14 as the head coach of the Blue Jays.  He spent the 2022 and 2023 seasons as the Blue Jay defensive coordinator and spent a total of seven years on the coaching staff at his alma mater before being promoted to head coach in February 2024.
 
D3football.com Preseason Top 25
1-North Central, 2- Cortland, 3-Wisconsin-Whitewater, 4-Wartburg, 5-Mount Union, 6-Wisconsin-La Crosse, 7-Alma, 8-Johns Hopkins, 9-Wheaton (IL), 10-Randolph-Macon, 11-Grove City, 12-Susquehanna, 13-Trinity (TX), 14-St. John's (MN), 15-Aurora, 16-Hardin-Simmons, 17-Wisconsin-River Falls, 18-Endicott, 19-John Carroll, 20-Ithaca, 21-Muhlenberg, Carnegie Mellon, 23-Linfield, 24-Whitworth, 25-Berry