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It’s hard to believe that October marks the 10th season of my college football Top 25 rankings.
Last year, we added the FCS rankings for the small college group. Look for that one on Tuesday.
We are almost halfway through a 12-game college football regular season. The early season results show a large number of excellent teams this year but no clear cut favorite.
It appears that there is going to be a true horse race to the finish line this season.
Two weeks ago, there were 35 teams with a perfect 3-0 record
That number has diminished down to 15 unbeaten teams today. Eleven are 5-0 with four more squads at 4-0 through last weekend.
A big logjam exists with our one-loss teams. There are 37 (!) teams with one loss through last weekend’s games.
Alas, there are only 25 spots available to make the top tier. Check out the bottom of this week’s rankings to see teams #26-52 this week and find out where your favorite one-loss teams is currently ranked.
Read ’em and weep!
But first…the weekend highlights!
The University of Florida’s unbeaten season came to a screeching halt at Columbia, Missouri on Saturday. Mizzou shocked the SEC by thrashing the AP’s 8th ranked Gators from start to finish in a surprisingly easy 45-17 win. The Missouri Tigers racked-up 560 yards in total offense against a stunned Florida defense.
Missouri hosts 3-2 Texas A&M on Saturday (11AM CDT on ABC). The Florida Gators crawled back to The Swamp. They now have a Saturday 11:45AM kickoff (SEC Network) against 2-3 South Carolina.
News flash – Alabama’s running game has emerged out of Intensive Care!
Last season’s Alabama Crimson Tide was surprisingly poor at running the football. Coach Kaylen DeBoer was criticized by Bama fans about the team’s weak rushing attack last season.
Alabama is off to a 5-0 start this fall.
A much bigger surprise is that Bama is averaging nearly 190 yards per game rushing this season. Their trio of running backs plus fleet-footed freshman quarterback Keelon Russell have injected life into Alabama’s ground game this fall.
The Crimson Tide ended Mississippi State’s 4-0 start on Saturday with a convincing 56-23 beatdown in Starkville. It gets more difficult on Saturday as 5-0 Georgia comes into Tuscaloosa for a nationally televised SEC battle (6:30PM on ABC).
Road trips to 4-1 Tennessee and 4-1 LSU are looming for the Crimson Tide in the weeks ahead.
Big Ten stalwarts Michigan and Penn State are sputtering
Be honest. Did you think that both Michigan and Penn State would be 3-2 after five games this season?
These two Big Ten schools are sporting new coaches with very impressive resumes.
Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham’s former teams at Utah were known for their hard-nosed disciplined play.
Coach Whittingham’s new team at Michigan apparently hasn’t bought-in – at least not yet. Critical home games against Penn State, Indiana, and UCLA plus road games at Oregon and Ohio State await. Ouch.
Penn State’s new coach Matt Campbell led a turnaround of the Iowa State program during the past decade. His new squad at Penn State was thrashed 34-13 last week at 3-1 Northwestern.
Penn State will now host 5-1 USC this Saturday (6:30PM on NBC) and then travels to play 3-2 Michigan in two weeks.
One of these two teams will have to finish 7-0 to reach this year’s College Football Playoffs. (Hint – not likely!)
Welcome into the FBS, North Dakota State!
The Bison have thundered to a 5-0 start after leaving the small college FCS this fall. North Dakota State is now a football-only FBS member of the Mountain West Conference.
The green-clad Bison shut-out Mountain West rival Wyoming 28-0 on Saturday inside their extremely loud indoor football facility in Fargo, North Dakota. Upcoming road games to 3-2 UNLV (this Saturday) and at 4-1 New Mexico (October 24) will test NDSU.
Update your scorecards – these teams have changed locations
North Dakota State (5-0) moved up from the FCS and now participates in the Mountain West Conference.
Ditto for Sacramento State (1-4). They also left the FCS. The Hornets are a football-only member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) beginning this fall.
Those two additions have bumped the FBS up to 138 members for this season.
Louisiana Tech (2-2) finally exited Conference USA and joined the Sun Belt Conference beginning this fall.
Texas State (2-3) left the Sun Belt to become a member of the new-but-not-exactly-improved Pac-12 Conference.
Also moving into the Pac-12 this season were long-time Mountain West members Boise State (4-1), Colorado State (2-3), Fresno State (4-1), San Diego State (2-3), and Utah State (1-4). They joined Pac-12 holdovers Oregon State and Washington State.
The Mountain West also added former Mid-American Conference member Northern Illinois (0-4).
Important! Here is the SwampSwamiSports.com Top 25 rankings methodology:
If you are new to this site (welcome!), below are my rules for ranking college football teams on SwampSwamiSports.com:
- Teams without a loss are ranked higher than any team which has already lost a game. Why should a team with a perfect record be ranked below a team with one loss?
- A team with five wins is always ranked above a team with four or fewer wins. Why? Because they have earned one more victory than teams ranked below them.
- Your team’s “best win” is redetermined weekly. I look through each team’s vanquished foes to determine which one now has the best won/loss record through last weekend’s games. It matters who you beat!
- Preference is given to your team’s “best win” if it came on the road vs. a home win.
- Ties are broken by point differentials in each team’s “best win”.
- A win over any FBS team receives preference over wins against an FCS school.
- When two teams have identical records, a head-to-head win over the team with the same number of losses is ranked higher.
- All decisions by the administrator of this site (me) are FINAL!
Bye weeks affect my rankings, but those will balance out later in the football season.
Without further adieu, let’s reveal the first SwampSwamiSports.com College Football Top 25 for the week ending Saturday, October 3, 2026.
