The Buckeyes look like the best team a third of the way through the season, even with an early loss on their record.
The college football season is one-third over. Exactly 25 of the 138 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision have the distinct honor of holding a spot in the Associated Press Top 25. I am here to taxonomize those teams into six buckets so that you can understand them in ways the official poll could never offer.
BEING RANKED IS NICE
No. 25 Missouri
No. 24 Kentucky
No. 23 UCLA
No. 21 SMU
No. 20 Houston
No. 17 Tennessee
No. 16 Mississippi State
Missouri has a real find in QB Austin Simmons, who lost his job at Ole Miss because he had the audacity to get hurt early last year while Trinidad Chambliss was his backup. Kentucky is rejuvenated on the field and in the stands under Will Stein, who has quickly created competence on both sides of the ball. UCLA might be really good under new coach Bob Chesney. The Bruins will run over most teams they play, but they have arguably the worst passing game in the Big Ten so far. Houston has one of the sport’s best offenses behind QB Conner Weigman but does not have much juice on the other side of the ball.
Tennessee just gave up 10 sacks to Texas, a big enough number that you could ask reasonable questions about whether this team is just mediocre. However, I expect the Vols to score a lot of points in the second half of the season when they face mediocre (or worse) defenses from Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt. This isn’t a title contender but could maybe be a playoff team thanks to the schedule. Mississippi State is a blast and has the most exciting passer in the sport in Kamario Taylor, but the defense is going to get torched a lot against Alabama, LSU, and Texas in October.
COULD WIN A PLAYOFF GAME OR TWO
No. 22 Boise State
No. 19 Oklahoma State
No. 18 USC
No. 14 Iowa
No. 12 Texas Tech
No. 11 LSU
No. 9 Ole Miss
No. 8 Florida
Boise State now has the inside track to the Group of 6 playoff berth, thanks to wins against American Conference contender Memphis and MAC contender Western Michigan. The Broncos scared Oregon in Eugene in Week 1 and have a dominant running back duo in Dylan Riley and Sire Gaines, so I don’t think it’s too much to think they could win a first-round game on the road.
Oklahoma State may wash out altogether but has real upside as long as QB Drew Mestemaker, receiver Wyatt Young, and head coach Eric Morris are anchoring the offense. You could say the same about USC, which will probably miss the playoff altogether after a Week 4 loss to Oregon but has the offensive chops to be scary if it gets in. Iowa is going to lose to Ohio State this week, but there’s a real chance they’ll be favored in every game they play the rest of the year. As Michigan learned on Saturday, even a more talented team that mostly shuts down Hank Brown and the offense can lose to these guys.
Texas Tech is not nearly as dominant in the trenches as it was in 2025, and Will Hammond’s 4.3 percent interception rate is the worst among Big 12 QBs. Pressure him, and he has big problems.
The upper middle class of the SEC is loaded with talented but flawed teams. LSU is liable to face the cohesion problems that come about naturally when a team is stitched together from nothing over a few weeks in one offseason. Ole Miss might have the worst defense in the SEC, non-Arkansas division, and could waste the last season with Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy as a result. Florida has a toned-down version of the same defensive problem but could make a run anyway with the country’s best tailback, Jadan Baugh. The Gators also have elite special teams, which helps.
GOOD BUT STILL UNTESTED
No. 13 Utah
No. 10 BYU
No. 7 Alabama
No. 6 Indiana
These teams have all played prickly power conference opponents that are nonetheless nowhere near their talent levels. Utah and BYU have dominant run games but will eventually need to push the ball down the field against high-end competition. In Utah’s case, a light Big 12 schedule means they won’t see any of those defenses until they host the Cougars in Week 10.
Alabama has a clear star at QB in Keelon Russell, and the Tide have done a nice job dispensing with prickly opponents in Kentucky and Florida State. We’ll know more about them after they host Georgia in two weeks.
Indiana has won 20 football games in a row, an epic achievement. This team looks just a little worse than last year’s in most areas and got a real challenge last week from Northwestern, when Chip Kelly’s offense seemingly had Bryant Haines’ defense confused for a lot of the evening. My prediction is that Indiana will have a loss on its record in a month thanks to either Nebraska, Ohio State, or Michigan.
REALLY GOOD BUT STILL UNTESTED
No. 4 Miami (FL)
No. 3 Notre Dame
No. 2 Georgia
All clear national title contenders, but all still a bit theoretical. Miami’s best opponent to date is Wake Forest, Notre Dame’s is Wisconsin, and Georgia’s is an Oklahoma team that scored 14 points against New Mexico the week before. It’s still a few weeks before any of these squads play a game they could lose. In the meantime, some reasonable questions to ask: Will Miami rush the passer at its usual elite level once it plays Notre Dame and whoever it meets in the playoff? Does Notre Dame’s offense have an explosive gear that it’s really not showing at this point? (We’ve seen good signs from receiver Micah Gilbert, at least.) And can Georgia win multiple playoff games despite having a QB, Gunner Stockton, who remains almost totally unable to throw the ball over the middle of the field? (This is not a problem for Notre Dame’s CJ Carr or Miami’s Darian Mensah, who can both sling it all over the field.)
GREAT TEAMS WITH GREAT PROBLEMS
No. 15 Oregon
No. 1 Texas
Oregon is much better than it showed in its loss to Oklahoma State in Week 2. The Ducks were victims of early-season variance and a coordinator change that day. They are now back on track after winning at USC, but Dante Moore’s scary injury means they’ll need continued great play from their backup, ex-Nebraska five-star Dylan Raiola. They also have minimal margin for error, given the OKST loss.
Texas is 120th in yards per rush (sacks not included), a legitimately unbelievable stat given the transfer additions of Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown. Smothers is now injured, but that doesn’t explain the situation here. The Longhorns are also 108th in passing plays of at least 20 yards (nine of them), equally unreal given that Cam Coleman plays for this team now. They already beat the next team on this list, so it’s clear that Texas could win the whole thing. But looking forward, those are reasons to worry.
THE TENTATIVE BEST TEAM IN THE LAND
No. 5 Ohio State
The best team in the sport, for my money, despite wilting in the fourth quarter at Texas and losing by a point. Jeremiah Smith is the best college football player I have ever watched, and Matt Patricia once again has a tremendous defense despite losing a historic haul to the top of the NFL Draft. This is not a perfect team, and they will have to find a way to run the ball a little better than the Buckeyes have to date. Even if you stripped out all games played against Texas, Ohio State would be just 38th in the country in yards per carry through four weeks. But I’m willing to chalk that up to a small sample size and not worry about it much given the existence of the aforementioned best college football player in years.
Congratulations to Ryan Day and the Buckeyes. They can put this “TENTATIVE BEST TEAM IN THE LAND, WEEK 4” trophy in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center alongside the program’s other trophies.