Here are the top 25 rankings before we kick off bowl season
| Rank | Difference | Team | Win | Loss | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ↑ 1 | Indiana | 13 | 0 | 1000 |
| 2 | ↑ 1 | Texas Tech | 12 | 1 | 942 |
| 3 | ↓ 2 | Ohio State | 12 | 1 | 929 |
| 4 | ↑ 2 | Georgia | 12 | 1 | 917 |
| 5 | ↓ 1 | Oregon | 11 | 1 | 874 |
| 6 | ↑ 1 | Notre Dame | 10 | 2 | 848 |
| 7 | ↓ 2 | BYU | 11 | 2 | 845 |
| 8 | - | Ole Miss | 11 | 1 | 843 |
| 9 | ↑ 1 | Texas A&M | 11 | 1 | 840 |
| 10 | ↓ 2 | Oklahoma | 10 | 2 | 838 |
| 11 | ↑ 7 | James Madison | 12 | 1 | 836 |
| 12 | - | Miami | 10 | 2 | 822 |
| 13 | - | Utah | 10 | 2 | 818 |
| 14 | ↓ 3 | Alabama | 10 | 3 | 808 |
| 15 | ↓ 1 | USC | 9 | 3 | 805 |
| 16 | ↓ 1 | Vanderbilt | 10 | 2 | 801 |
| 17 | - | Michigan | 9 | 3 | 784 |
| 18 | ↑ 12 | Duke | 8 | 5 | 782 |
| 18 | ↑ 14 | Tulane | 11 | 2 | 782 |
| 20 | ↓ 4 | North Texas | 11 | 2 | 781 |
| 21 | ↓ 1 | Texas | 9 | 3 | 767 |
| 22 | ↓ 1 | Arizona | 9 | 3 | 765 |
| 23 | ↓ 5 | Virginia | 10 | 3 | 761 |
| 24 | ↓ 2 | Iowa | 8 | 4 | 739 |
| 25 | ↑ 20 | Boise State | 9 | 4 | 735 |
Conference breakdown:
- 6 B1G
- 7 SEC
- 3 ACC
- 4 Big 12
- 1 Independent
- 2 AAC
- 1 Fun Belt
- 1 MWC
That is a wrap on the 2025 regular season and conference championship week. Most of the games on Saturday were unfortunately blow outs, but any day with ball is a good one.
Congratulations to the Indiana Hoosiers on winning the B1G and claiming back the top ranked spot. Excited to see if they can keep this magical run going in the playoffs, they have proven that they aren't just schedule merchants this year. What Cignetti has done in his 2 years there is one of the most impressive coaching jobs I can ever remember. Personally I am hoping that Alabama can make it to the Rose Bowl and play them, would love to attend that game.
Speaking of Alabama, Saturday was a rough one as a fan. The offensive run game has never clicked this year and it really showed against Georgia. All credit to the Dawgs, they have looked dominant. The computer rankings dropped Alabama to 14, which I personally would have them ranked a bit higher. Obviously the CFB world online is generally biased against Bama, and I am biased towards them. In my opinion, however, you need to reward quality wins and strength of schedule instead of making the quality losses argument. In my proprietary Strength of Wins metric, Alabama comes in 1st out of 136, followed closely by Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma and NC State in that order. Notre Dame, for reference, comes in 20th. BYU is in 7th and Miami is in 11th. For this reason, I don't think ND got snubbed. They only played three excellent teams all year and lost to 2 of them. I see why they are upset with being jumped by Miami at the last minute, but other than that they should've just won one of those two games. It's nowhere near as egregious as some of the snubs in the 4 team playoff era.
I also have a proprietary Strength of Losses metric, which Notre Dame fans will prefer to look at. They come in at 11, with Alabama at 22, Miami at 69, and BYU at 4. The top 5 in this metric are Indiana (no losses), Ohio State, Oregon, BYU and Utah in that order. Neither this metric or the Strength of Wins are factored into this year's rankings, but I am seeing how much weight I should give them and if I should include them next year. You may also notice that conference champions got a significant bump this week (JMU at 11, Duke at 18, Boise at 25). The rankings value winning your conference quite a bit (maybe too much so) which explains that. It will still continue to rank through the playoffs, so a blowout (or a few wins?) for JMU will put them in their final spot for the year.
Thanks for reading and following along with the index this year. I appreciate any positive or negative criticism. I'm looking into how I can continue to grow the blog by adding new features, like the filters, so keep your eye out for that. Also enjoy bowl season! One of my favorite traditions around this time of year is being off of work and watching some bowls between teams that don't often get prime time games. Cheers!