Ranking 136 college football teams after the 2025 season: A no-doubt No. 1 and other inspiring risers
The 2025 college football season is over. With Indiana’s 27-21 win against Miami, the most surprising champion in the history of the sport capped a season that didn’t go the way almost anyone expected.
I’ve ranked every Football Bowl Subdivision team for every week of the regular season since 2017. Last year’s expanded College Football Playoff made for the most difficult ranking ever. This year, not nearly as much. In some ways, a lot has changed since the last rankings — Miami played four games since the last edition of The Athletic 136 after conference championship weekend, rising from No. 8 to No. 2. In others, it hasn’t. Spoiler alert: Indiana remains No. 1.
Bowl games count, but I factored in the impact of opt-outs. CFP runs matter, but they aren’t the only reason a team can make a postseason move. The rankings are meant to represent teams’ resumes from the entire season, but Playoff games carry more weight.
For the fourth year in a row, I’ve included the preseason ranking of every team, to hold myself accountable. This year’s significant overachievers were Virginia, North Texas, Houston, New Mexico and San Diego State. The biggest underachievers were Penn State, Clemson, LSU, South Carolina and Florida. Having Penn State and Clemson at preseason Nos. 1 and 2 might be the worst miss I’ve ever had, even if not from a pure math standpoint (see: Florida State last year). I was right that the two would met in the postseason. I just didn’t predict it to be the Pinstripe Bowl.
But it’s fun when the unexpected happens, compared to a decade ago, when the top five was always easy to predict.
Here is the final Athletic 136 for the 2025 season.
The top three were simple. I didn’t have last year’s national runner-up at No. 2 last year, but I do this year, since the national champ went undefeated. Ole Miss and Georgia beat each other in close games, but I’ll put more weight on the postseason meeting.
Georgia finishes at No. 4 because the Bulldogs had more good wins (over Ole Miss, Alabama and Texas) than the other options. Ohio State comes in at No. 5 after a quarterfinal loss to Miami, while Oregon sits at No. 6 for its blowout Peach Bowl loss to Indiana in the semifinals.
Texas at No. 8 is likely the most controversial placement, but the Longhorns had wins over Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Michigan and Vanderbilt. They also had a bunch of near-losses and the bad Florida loss, but I see them on the same level as A&M and OU, and they beat both comfortably. The No. 9 Aggies had a Week 3 win at Notre Dame but little else on the resume.
Notre Dame finishes at No. 10. I had the Irish ahead of Alabama and Oklahoma heading into the Playoff, and they remain there.
Alabama and Oklahoma flip after the Tide won the rematch. Each team won on the other’s home field, but Alabama’s win was the Playoff game. Virginia slides up to No. 15 after beating a limited Missouri in the bowl game, capping a huge year for coach Tony Elliott. USC stays at No. 16 after its overtime bowl loss to TCU, in part because the Trojans’ win over Iowa got better when the Hawkeyes beat Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt. That result jumped Iowa from No. 33 to No. 16.
No. 21 Tulane and No. 22 James Madison drop a couple of spots for their Playoff losses, while North Texas and No. 24 Navy remain in the top 25 for their bowl wins. And TCU bumps into the top 25 after that bowl win against USC. That and the regular season win against SMU had the Horned Frogs leap the Mustangs.
SMU’s bowl win against Arizona has the Mustangs hurdle the Wildcats. Washington and Illinois slide into the top 30 with bowl wins, and the Huskies stay ahead of the Illini due to their regular season matchup, won by UW.
ACC champion Duke moves up to No. 34 for beating Arizona State in its bowl but stays behind Georgia Tech due to their head-to-head. Pitt drops to No. 38 after losing its bowl to a shorthanded East Carolina team.
Penn State, LSU and Clemson were all preseason top-10 teams that finished in the 40s. I still can’t fully make sense of it going that badly, especially for Penn State and Clemson, which seemed to be following the Michigan and Ohio State playbook from the previous two years by bringing back veteran teams. Northwestern moved back ahead of Penn State, jumping from No. 55 to No. 39 its bowl win and earlier head-to-head wins over Penn State and Minnesota.
A Mountain West quadbox of New Mexico, San Diego State, Boise State and UNLV, the four that tied atop the conference standings in the regular season, closes out this group. UNM beat SDSU, who beat Boise, who beat UNLV twice and UNM.
Hawaii climbs up 12 spots to No. 55 after beating Cal in a thrilling Hawaii Bowl to finish 9-4. Washington State moved up to No. 61 for beating Utah State, while Western Michigan rose nine spots to No. 62 after blowing out Kennesaw State. Ohio’s Frisco Bowl win against UNLV sees the Bobcats jump from No. 77 to No. 66.
A handful of bowl teams here, but not much movement. Army routed an undermanned UConn in its bowl to finish at No. 76. UTSA, Louisiana Tech, Arkansas State, Georgia Southern and Texas State all won their bowl games.
The only bowl teams here were FIU, Utah State, Coastal Carolina, Rice and Appalachian State, all of whom lost.
Oklahoma State finishes as the lowest-ranked Power 4 team at No. 123. The Cowboys didn’t win an FBS game and lost to Tulsa. They also went winless in Big 12 play for the second year in a row, a stunning collapse after reaching the 2023 Big 12 title game. It’ll be on new head coach Eric Morris to turn things around. Notably, only one of the bottom 12 teams (Colorado State) fired their coach this offseason.
It’s UMass who finishes at No. 136 and winless, the third time since 2020 that UMass is at the bottom. The Minutemen did have narrow losses to Buffalo and FCS Bryant. They also had eight losses by at least 28 points. They have not finished higher than No. 123 since the 2019 season.
