the first week of the 2025 college football season

published september 1, 2025

introductory comments

week one has been crazy not only for the college football world but also for me. it certainly seems there are no mistakes in the score entries for this week, but who knows, i'll check later anyway probably. but now that it's over, here are the rankings you have been waiting on with bated breath.

the top 25

please excuse this and the following list while details get ironed out.

  1. florida state - 169 pts. (1-0, +14)
  2. florida - 146 pts. (1-0, +55)
  3. lsu - 142 pts. (1-0, +7)
  4. arkansas - 140 pts. (1-0, +45)
  5. vanderbilt - 139 pts. (1-0, +42)
  6. texas a&m - 139 pts. (1-0, +18)
  7. oklahoma - 136 pts. (1-0, +32)
  8. ohio state - 136 pts. (1-0, +7)
  9. mississippi state - 135 pts. (1-0, +17)
  10. georgia - 134 pts. (1-0, +38)
  11. south florida - 134 pts. (1-0, +27)
  12. kentucky - 134 pts. (1-0, +8)
  13. south carolina - 132 pts. (1-0, +13)
  14. wisconsin - 131 pts. (1-0, +17)
  15. auburn - 131 pts. (1-0, +14)
  16. miami - 131 pts. (1-0, +3)
  17. tennessee - 129 pts. (1-0, +19)
  18. purdue - 127 pts. (1-0, +31)
  19. ole miss - 123 pts. (1-0, +56)
  20. usc - 120 pts. (1-0, +60)
  21. oregon - 120 pts. (1-0, +46)
  22. rutgers - 120 pts. (1-0, +3)
  23. nebraska - 119 pts. (1-0, +3)
  24. missouri - 115 pts. (1-0, +55)
  25. iowa - 115 pts. (1-0, +27)

the bottom 25

the above disclaimer does not apply to army and boise state.

  1. army - -87 pts. (0-1, -3)
  2. akron - -4 pts. (0-1, -10)
  3. boise state - -3 pts. (0-1, -27)
  4. southern miss - 0 pts. (0-1, -17)
  5. buffalo - 3 pts. (0-1, -13)
  6. toledo - 3 pts. (0-1, -8)
  7. jacksonville state - 4 pts. (0-1, -7)
  8. eastern michigan - -25 pts. (0-1, -25)
  9. liberty - 5 pts. (1-0, +21)
  10. louisiana - 9 pts. (0-1, -2)
  11. kennesaw state - 10 pts. (0-1, -1)
  12. western michigan - 11 pts. (0-1, -17)
  13. middle tennessee - 11 pts. (1-0, +20)
  14. north texas - 11 pts. (1-0, +51)
  15. delaware - 14 pts. (1-0, +18)
  16. ball state - 15 pts. (0-1, -31)
  17. northern illinois - 19 pts. (1-0, +2)
  18. florida atlantic - 20 pts. (0-1, -32) (7 pf)
  19. umass - 20 pts. (0-1, -32) (10 pf)
  20. connecticut - 22 pts. (1-0, +46)
  21. san diego state - 23 pts. (1-0, +42)
  22. western kentucky - 24 pts. (1-1, +32)
  23. appalachian state - 25 pts. (1-0, +23)
  24. bowling green - 26 pts. (1-0, +19)
  25. james madison - 27 pts. (1-0, +35)

adjustments

the thursday opener: boise state @ south florida

i do not care that you are an away team. i care that you snuck into the top 25. losing like this is not something ranked teams do and it isn't even something rank a teams do. boise state has been demoted to b tier. you're welcome for saving you from the horrors that happened to army's score this week.

south florida +64, boise state -64

a late game from thursday: alabama state @ uab

another moral loss has been dished out. uab really only played like a team that could win this game by three points, and they only won it by ten because of when the clock happened to finally end this game. uab should consider themselves lucky that they still managed to gain points this week.

uab +9

further notes

the texans sink the army: tarleton state @ army

army will now spend the rest of the season desperately waiting for someone to lose more points in a week than they have. a c team losing to an f team results in a loss of 128 points for army into the void of the fcs. this was found fitting and army was kept in their tier to punish them. naturally, this horrifying loss shot them to the very bottom of the list, perhaps never to return depending on their future performance.

lee corso's last pick: texas @ ohio state

football loves lee corso, and he will be missed on every saturday from here on out. all his favorites had a great week for his retirement though, and the headgear pick resulted in a defensive game where corso correctly foretold the offensive collapse of arch manning. better luck next time, arch, and be happy you only lost 16 points for this one. losing to someone else will result in much worse.

kent state... wins?: merrimack @ kent state

last year's winless team finally picked up their first win in 714 days against merrimack. i'm not even going to look up how long it has been since they beat another fbs team, but i thought this was at least worth mentioning, if for no other reason than that means there probably won't be a winless team this year.

the continued bama slide: alabama @ florida state

if you had doubts that the saban era was over, they should be buried. the committee was unable to review sufficient footage to justify a demotion this week, but further such performances by alabama will be punished accordingly.

the belichick debut: tcu @ north carolina

this game was a horrid start to a head coaching stint that made me want alternatives to monday night college football. the committee ended up inconclusive on demoting north carolina for this showing, but rest assured bill, your team's ranking is on thin ice.

scorigami recognition

it was very easy to land on this list this week given the amount of teams that choose to take on their fcs opponents first. therefore it is with a grain of salt that congratulations go to:

the belt

florida retains the belt and earns 5 extra points. i'm sure this didn't come as a surprise. but given south florida's performance this week, florida's reign already enters into some jeopardy when they look to defend against south florida on saturday of week two.

finishing up

i should be able to get more opinion out of the committee next week unless some crazy things happen in nfl week one. it's a miracle this article got out this early anyway. no strange game times next week though, so week two's article should come out sunday. see you then.