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  • Bill ConnellyMay 31, 2025, 07:20 AM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

Leave it to college football to take the silliest, most circuitous possible route to the easiest, most logical answer.

Though nothing’s official and things could take further silly turns, a read of recent tea leaves gives the impression that those in charge of how the College Football Playoff will look in 2026 and beyond are homing in on a straightforward, 16-team tournament with five guaranteed spots for conference champions and 11 at-large bids. After months of debates about different bracket structures and conferences getting multiple automatic bids, the conversation seems to have returned to a clean and easy bracket.

We’re going to pretend this means people are listening to me. When I wrote about this debate in March, I recommended skipping expansion to 14 teams and moving to 16, and I mocked the idea of multiple autobids. Granted, I also recommended putting six conference champions in the field and putting quarterfinal games in home stadiums, not just first-round games. I won’t hold my breath on those ideas (especially the former), but that’s still a pretty good batting average.

After a week of posturing from power conference leaders, let’s keep the conversation going. Here are some thoughts about what we’ve learned this week and the debates still to come

Moving to nine conference games might cost the SEC one to two playoff teams per year

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey talked a lot this week. He went on “The Paul Finebaum Show.” He talked about a scheduling partnership with the Big Ten. He increased the fines for field rushing. He talked about which playoff games should or will be on home campuses. He talked about how long this formatting process takes. He scoffed at being told to serve the good of the game. And he spent a long time telling everyone how hard the SEC’s schedules are:

On Thursday afternoon, the SEC provided members of the media with a six-page packet that included color-coded charts using multiple metrics to illustrate the league’s dominant schedule strength. Sankey said the task for determining the CFP’s strength of schedule component is striking a balance “between human and machine,” referring to the old BCS computer formula. … [The packet] included ESPN’s Strength of Record, Bill Connelly’s SP+, Kenneth Massey’s metric, ESPN’s Football Power Index and ESPN’s Strength of Schedule metric.

Sankey seemed to have two primary goals for bringing up strength of schedule. For starters, it seemed like he wanted to remind everyone that Alabama and its 9-3 record didn’t get into last year’s 12-team CFP despite strength-of-schedule numbers quite a bit stronger than those of higher ranked teams such as SMU (which had gone 11-2), Boise State (12-1) and Indiana (11-1). He said that decision left him with critical questions about the committee and its process.

“I do think there’s a need for change,” Sankey said of the ranking protocol Thursday at the conclusion of his league’s spring meetings. “… How do you make those decisions? It’s hard, and we trust the committee to do that, and I respect the people in there, so this isn’t a criticism of the people. This is wanting to understand the decisions. We have to have better clarity on the criteria that inform those decisions.”

Now, all the strength-of-schedule advantages in the world didn’t stop Alabama from losing to 6-6 Vanderbilt and 6-6 Oklahoma. In the latter game, Alabama couldn’t have looked less playoff-worthy, losing 24-3 to the Sooners. Maybe the Tide would have gotten in with a formula approach, but they showed no indication that they could make a playoff run at the end of the season. Plus, we know that the playoff committee took Alabama’s strength of schedule into account because it ranked the Tide ahead of 11-2 Arizona State, 10-2 Miami and 10-2 BYU, among others, despite how they looked at the end of the regular season. If Bama had lost to only one of Vandy or Oklahoma, the Tide would have almost certainly been in the field of 12. And they’d have definitely been in a field of 16 regardless, along with two other three-loss SEC teams (Ole Miss and South Carolina).

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4:23

Greg Sankey discusses the hottest topics from the SEC spring meetings

Commissioner Sankey joins The Paul Finebaum Show to detail the conversations around possible CFP changes and conference schedules going forward.

Also, Sankey didn’t mention that the committee placed a one-loss Alabama team ahead of an unbeaten Florida State team in the CFP rankings just one year earlier. If we want to talk about a formula, let’s talk about a formula. But the SEC has been treated with extreme kindness by the committee on average.

(For the record, I’m all for a formula-based rankings system. I put out a BCS-like formula ranking in the home stretch of each season, and there’s value in the approach. People convinced themselves that they hated the BCS formula, but I will forever insist that the main reason they hated the formula wasn’t the formula — it was that the BCS selected only two teams to play for the title. With a lot more teams to choose now, a formula approach would work quite well.)

Beyond the attempts to work the referees, however, Sankey also discussed schedule strength as it pertained to the ongoing conversation about the length of the SEC’s conference schedules. The SEC plays eight-game conference schedules, while the other primary power conference, the Big Ten, plays nine-game schedules. Despite this difference, the metrics cited by the SEC above (including, yes, my SP+ rankings) are a pretty stark reminder that, between the SEC typically having far fewer easy matchups than the Big Ten and a solid rotation of annual out-of-conference rivalry games played by SEC teams against ACC programs — Florida against Florida State, South Carolina against Clemson, etc. — the average SEC schedule is already a decent amount tougher than the average Big Ten schedule. Using my recent post-spring SP+ projections as a guide, SEC teams project to have 13 of the 15 hardest schedules in the country despite eight-game conference slates.

Since Sankey serves at the discretion of SEC presidents and, to a degree, athletic directors, it made sense that Sankey wanted to push back on the mounting pressure to move to nine games.

“If we’re not confident that the decision-making about who gets in and why and what are the metrics around it, it’s going to be really hard for some of my colleagues to get to the nine games,” Texas A&M athletics director Trev Alberts said this week.

Why make your schedules harder if it will cost your conference playoff bids, right?

There are plenty of valid reasons for moving to nine games regardless of what it does to playoff status. For starters, it will likely increase the value of the SEC’s media rights contract, giving the league even more of a war chest. It would make teams’ home schedules even more exciting and, potentially, expensive. And most importantly, it would make the 16-team conference feel like an actual conference: With a nine-game schedule, you can play every team twice in four years. With eight-game schedules, those rotations take a lot longer. (Yes, this is being written by a Mizzou guy who’s bitter that LSU fans, with their tailgating prowess, have had a reason to come to Columbia only once in Mizzou’s 13 SEC seasons.)

Because we’re using numbers to prove that SEC schedules are already difficult, let’s use numbers to ask a different question: How much more difficult would nine-game SEC schedules be?

To answer this question, I did what I do: I ran a simulation. I created four years’ worth of nine-game SEC schedules based around the super-clean, super-easy idea of permanent conference rivalries: You assign every team three permanent, annual opponents, and they play six other opponents home-and-away over two years, then the other six over the next two. Voila, you’ve visited every stadium in your conference and hosted every conference mate at least once every four years. I’ve been floored that other huge conferences such as the Big Ten and Big 12 haven’t leaned further into the permanent rivals concept — the 16-team Big 12 isn’t making Farmageddon (Kansas State-Iowa State) an annual game, and the 18-team Big Ten didn’t set up annual games between all of its four new Western teams. Regardless, I set up permanent rivals for each SEC team.

  • Alabama: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee

  • Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M

  • Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State

  • Florida: Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina

  • Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina

  • Kentucky: Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

  • LSU: Alabama, Mississippi State, Ole Miss

  • Mississippi State: Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss

  • Missouri: Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina

  • Oklahoma: Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M

  • Ole Miss: LSU, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt

  • South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Missouri

  • Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt

  • Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M

  • Texas A&M: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas

  • Vanderbilt: Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee

These pairings preserve all but one of the series that have been played 90-plus times (Alabama-Mississippi State is the one I couldn’t squeeze in, in part because MSU has four such series). They reconnect former Big 8, Big 12 and/or SWC rivalries such as Oklahoma-Missouri and Texas-Arkansas, but they don’t go too far in that regard — at this point, Missouri has played South Carolina as conference mates as many times as Texas A&M (13) and more than Texas (nine), and the teams from the two Columbias have played some strange and memorable battles already.

There’s obviously a pretty big difference in quality between, say, Auburn’s or LSU’s annual opponents versus that of Kentucky or Ole Miss. But remember: Six of a team’s nine conference games come from the rest of the pool. Over a four-year rotation, Auburn’s schedules are only a smidgen harder than Ole Miss’ on average.

A full nine-game Auburn schedule might look like this: Alabama, at Georgia, Mississippi State, at Oklahoma, South Carolina, at Ole Miss, Tennessee, at Vanderbilt, Texas A&M. Meanwhile, an Ole Miss schedule might look like this (common opponents in bold): at LSU, Vanderbilt, at Mississippi State, Arkansas, at Kentucky, Auburn, at Missouri, Georgia, at Oklahoma. One plays Alabama, the other plays LSU. One plays Kentucky, the other plays South Carolina. Over time, the schedule strengths will be pretty close.

Using existing nonconference games as much as possible (with a few necessary tweaks), here’s what the 2026 schedule might look like with nine total conference games and a 3+6 approach.

Because you’ve got some teams now playing five conference road games, it will be difficult to avoid handing teams some pretty rough patches — Alabama and Missouri playing four road games in five weeks late in the season, for example, or Kentucky starting with back-to-back conference road games. But it’s hard not to notice how every week is pretty loaded. Some hypothetical 2026 headliners:

  • Week 1: Georgia at Ole Miss, Clemson at LSU, Miami at South Carolina, Texas A&M at Tennessee

  • Week 2: Ohio State at Texas, Oklahoma at Michigan, Missouri at Kansas, Kentucky at LSU

  • Week 3: Florida State at Alabama, Oklahoma at Texas A&M, South Carolina at Auburn, Florida at Kentucky

  • Week 4: Tennessee at Georgia, Alabama at Florida, Arkansas vs. Texas A&M, LSU at South Carolina, Illinois at Missouri*

  • Week 5: Georgia at Alabama, Auburn at Oklahoma, Florida at Texas, Texas A&M at South Carolina, Ole Miss at Missouri

  • Week 6: Oklahoma vs. Texas, Tennessee at Auburn, Missouri at Georgia, South Carolina at Florida

  • Week 7: Tennessee at Alabama, LSU at Texas, Auburn at Ole Miss, Oklahoma at Arkansas, Georgia at South Carolina

  • Week 8: Arkansas at Ole Miss, Missouri at South Carolina, Oklahoma at Kentucky

  • Week 9: Alabama at Texas, Georgia vs. Florida, Ole Miss at LSU, Missouri at Texas A&M

  • Week 10: Alabama at LSU, Texas A&M at Auburn, Ole Miss at Oklahoma, Texas at Missouri

  • Week 11: Auburn at Georgia, Texas at Arkansas, Florida at Texas A&M, Missouri at Tennessee

  • Week 12: LSU at Florida, Georgia at Texas A&M, Missouri at Oklahoma, Alabama at South Carolina

  • Week 13: The typical loaded rivalry week

(* Missouri is somehow scheduled to play at Illinois and Kansas in 2026, but because the Tigers drew a slate with five conference road games, I flipped the Illinois game out of pure convenience.)

Obviously, the real-life 2026 SEC slate will also feature a lot of these big-time games, but aside from a relatively paltry Week 8, every week has some huge, TV-friendly brand matchups. That’s an utterly loaded schedule.

It’s also a schedule that will, as athletic directors will surely notice, hand quite a few losses to good teams.

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1:29

Paul Finebaum supports CFP moving to straight seeding in 2025

Paul Finebaum is on board with the College Football Playoff shifting to a straight seeding model starting this season.

Though I shared hypothetical 2026 schedules above, I wanted to use SP+ projections to look at a full four-year rotation and compare what it would produce from a wins-and-losses standpoint to what the current eight-game slate produces.

For the league’s elite teams, moving to nine games won’t make much of a difference. For instance, with its current schedule, SP+ projects Georgia to win 9.8 games on average, with an 84.9% chance of going at least 9-3 (the hypothetical cutoff line for SEC teams hoping to get into the field). But with an abridged, three-game nonconference schedule — for the most part, I shrank nonconference schedules by getting rid of teams’ second games against Group of 5 teams and leaving one game against a power-conference opponent, one against a G5 team and one against an FCS team — Georgia averages 9.7 wins over four simulated seasons, with a 79.6% chance of reaching 9-3 or better on average. There’s a bit less margin for error, but well-projected teams like Georgia will be in good shape, regardless.

For the league’s light heavyweights, however, things get trickier. Florida has a 43.7% chance of finishing 9-3 or better in 2025, but in a nine-SEC-games universe, that drops to 19.6%. Four others see their odds drop by at least 10%, and current long shots like Vanderbilt (10.2% chance of going 9-3 in 2025) see their odds almost completely vanish (0.1%).

Overall, an average of 6.2 SEC teams are projected to go 9-3 or better in 2025. In a nine-game universe, that average shrinks to 4.7. With a 16-team field, you could say that the league would go from expecting around six teams in the field to having four or five teams safely in and campaigning for some 8-4 teams. Meanwhile, the league would also go from an average of 13.4 bowl-eligible teams to just 11.4.

That’s not an insignificant change. There would be plenty of cases where an 8-4 team with an off-the-charts strength of schedule would also be in good shape, but the professed risk is real. Of course, that’s what the money’s for. Media rights revenue would probably rise with expanded conference schedules; plus, the SEC and Big Ten are already guaranteed a huge portion of future CFP money anyway, so if they lose a playoff team here or there, it’s only going to hurt so much. Still, it’s easy to see why SEC ADs and coaches, whose jobs (and, potentially, bonuses) might be dictated by CFP bids, might balk at making tough schedules tougher.

The SEC and Big Ten championship games are being rendered moot

Among the main reasons the Big Ten, in particular, was interested in a selection process that featured multiple autobids (a rumored four each for the Big Ten and SEC) were that it would allow the two conferences — plus, perhaps, the ACC and Big 12, which were likely to receive two guaranteed bids each in such a structure — to redefine Championship Weekend.

The Big Ten and SEC championship games provided little-to-no positive impact for their winners last year: Oregon beat Penn State in the Big Ten championship to earn a first-round playoff bye but drew a smoking hot Ohio State in the quarterfinals and lost, and Georgia beat Texas in the SEC championship but lost quarterback Carson Beck to injury and handed Gunner Stockton his first career start in a quarterfinal loss to Notre Dame. (Plus, there were almost no negative repercussions for losing these games. Penn State and Texas each dropped only one spot in the rankings, and when SMU lost to lower-ranked Clemson in the ACC championship game, the Mustangs fell only from eighth to 10th and still got in.) With autobids, you could create multiple play-in games and produce a new spectacle while avoiding handing extra injury risk to just your top two teams.

There’s logic in that, even if I didn’t think it outweighed the negatives of multiple autobids — that they would make the entire playoff look like a Big Ten-SEC invitational, render large portions of the regular season moot (nonconference games would have almost no impact on playoff bids, and if a No. 6 seed with an 8-4 record can steal an 11-1 No. 3 seed’s playoff bid, then what’s the point of any of this?) and sure looked like they were primarily designed to rake in extra television dough.

Recent brainstorming sessions reportedly produced ideas such as giving SEC and Big Ten champions a double-bye in a 16-team bracket, with a first round consisting of play-in games for the lowest-ranked of the 16 teams, but that ruins the point of a clean, easy 16-team playoff. But with a plain 16-teamer, the impact of the SEC and Big Ten championships will be the difference between getting a No. 1 and No. 4 seed. That doesn’t counter the injury risk.

Conference championships are valuable enough that I doubt conferences will willingly get rid of them. But they feel like a hindrance to the current process, and I wonder how conference leaders will square that circle. I have one idea, though, and it comes from the 2020 COVID season.

When the Big Ten initially announced it was returning to action that fall, it created an abbreviated eight-game slate for each team, followed by a championship weekend that was intended to feature extra cross-division games for each team across the East and West divisions — No. 2 East vs. No. 2 West, No. 3 vs. No. 3, etc. Granted, things got messy because of positive COVID tests and resulting cancellations, but the Big Ten still featured four games on championship weekend.

Maybe there’s something to the idea of playing a full slate of championship week games, even if they aren’t playoff play-in games? Maybe that becomes part of the regular-season slate, in which, after everyone has played eight conference games, the standings determine who you play for the ninth?

Using last year’s eight-game SEC standings (and adjusting to avoid rematches where possible), we could have sent Texas and Georgia to play for the SEC title in Atlanta while also having 6-2 Tennessee (the No. 3 team in the standings) host 5-3 LSU, 5-3 Alabama host 5-3 Texas A&M, and so on. That would keep everyone from playing an extra game, and it would create a lot of de facto playoff play-in games even if they weren’t officially called that.

The brainstorming on this can continue for a while longer, but there’s no doubting that, though I think a clean 16-teamer is the most favorable conclusion for this long debate, there are still downsides and wrinkles to iron out.

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College football FPI release: The numbers behind the top teams, best matchups and championship odds

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June 3, 2025

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College football FPI release: The numbers behind the top teams, best matchups and championship odds

  • Neil PaineJun 3, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      Neil Paine writes about sports using data and analytics. Previously, he was Sports Editor at FiveThirtyEight.

There’s no going back now. The College Football Playoff’s expanded 12-team format made its debut last season, reshaping the postseason as we knew it and showing just how brutal the path to a national championship can be. Add in a flurry of conference realignments (with the grueling travel schedules they created), the ever-increasing influence of the transfer portal and what might be the dawn of an entirely new financial model underpinning the sport, and college football could be changing faster — and more dramatically — than at any point in its history.

As part of our efforts to keep track of these seismic changes, we are relaunching our Football Power Index (FPI) ratings and projections for the 2025 season this week. Just to refresh our memories, the FPI is a predictive rating system that estimates each FBS team’s strength (in points per game relative to the national average) on offense, defense and special teams, making adjustments for starters lost, recruiting talent and other personnel changes. Those numbers are then plugged into the schedule, and everything is simulated 20,000 times to track each team’s odds of winning its conference, making the playoff and advancing through to the national title.

The preseason forecast features plenty of familiar teams at the top, but also plenty of candidates to crash the playoff party. Let’s begin our tour of the data by looking at the teams most likely to win the 2025 championship.

The top of the list is dominated by SEC teams — 11 of the top 19 hail from the conference, including the two most likely champions in Texas and Georgia (and three of the top four, if you include Alabama).

A year after Ohio State and the Big Ten won the first 12-team playoff title — with only three SEC squads making the field — the FPI model expects a nation-high 4.6 playoff teams to hail from the conference (nearly twice as many from any other) with a 61% chance that the SEC produces the eventual champion.

SEC and Big Ten remain on top

If not an SEC team, then the championship will probably go to another familiar power conference program, with a trio of Big Ten teams — Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon — checking in next on the odds list, a year after each went to the CFP quarterfinals (or beyond). A high share of returning production could also have coach Dabo Swinney and Clemson representing the ACC in the playoff again — perhaps making it past the the first round this time.

And if we’re looking for somewhat refreshed entries after down seasons, Auburn, Michigan and Oklahoma are all among the 17 most likely champions after each finished outside the top 25 in the FPI last season. All three made major moves in the offseason to spark their surges: Auburn brought in a top-10 transfer class headlined by former Sooners quarterback Jackson Arnold; Michigan brought in a big recruiting class and a few top transfers; and Oklahoma revamped its offensive core, with prized quarterback John Mateer at the helm — plus its returning production otherwise — helping vault the Sooners back into the national picture.

Playoff odds for the Group of 5

As always, the Group of 5 is also an important part of the playoff puzzle, in no small part because of its guaranteed spot in the bracket (reserved for the fifth-highest ranked conference champion). Here are the non-power conference teams with the highest chance to make the playoff in the FPI model.

Even after losing record-setting running back Ashton Jeanty, the Broncos remain the most likely Group of 5 team to make the playoff — though Tulane (despite losing quarterback Darian Mensah and running back Makhi Hughes) and UNLV (coming off an 11-win season, though quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams has moved on) aren’t far behind. With several contenders bunched together and no clear juggernaut, the G5 race for a playoff spot is something to keep a close eye on — including its ripple effects on the rest of the bracket.

Next, let’s look at the projected top units on each side of the ball in 2025, according to the FPI.

If we want another illustration of how dominant the best teams are, the top four projected offensive teams by the FPI — Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State — are also the top four projected defensive teams, with Alabama and Texas rising 10 spots apiece from 2024 on the offensive side.

That kind of balance on both sides of the ball is what separates this year’s top contenders from the pack, especially in a postseason format that requires versatility over three or four high-stakes playoff games. The rest of the top 20 on both sides also contain some of the biggest offseason movers in those unit rankings — such as Oregon (up 11 spots on defense), Florida (up 27 spots on offense), Clemson (up 14 spots on defense), South Carolina (up 24 spots on offense) and Texas A&M and Auburn (who are up double-digit spots on both sides).

Biggest risers and fallers

Speaking of those offseason changes, let’s look at the programs that have gained (or lost) the most ground overall in the FPI entering 2025.

FAU is projected to improve by at least 25 ranking slots on offense, defense and special teams after adding quite a few transfers — including ex-Western Kentucky quarterback Caden Veltkamp — ahead of coach Zach Kittley’s first season in Boca Raton. Among power conference teams, Florida State is looking to bounce back from last season’s nightmare with the help of a great offseason in the portal, headlined by the addition of former USC wide receiver Duce Robinson, while ACC rival, Stanford, has the nation’s 13th-highest share of production returning for 2025.

At the other end, Army has lost roughly half of its production from last season’s impressive 12-2 team, including top rusher Kanye Udoh and sack leader Elo Modozie; the FPI predicts regression will hit the Knights hard.

And in terms of power teams who had competitive FPI ratings a year ago, Louisville is projected to drop from No. 12 to 41 after bidding farewell to quarterback Tyler Shough, wide receiver Ja’Corey Brooks, starting offensive tackle Monroe Mills, sack leader Ashton Gillotte and each of its three leading defensive backs in interceptions. Similarly, Colorado sustained heavy offseason losses, and regression might also come for Indiana and Iowa State after a pair of outstanding 11-win seasons.

(Where did the top transfer portal teams land on the most improved list? In addition to FSU and Auburn, Nebraska is up 13 spots to No. 25, Texas Tech rose nine spots to No. 35 and Texas A&M was up seven slots to No. 8. But keep an eye on Ole Miss, which was among the more active portal teams but fell eight spots in the FPI rankings anyway without quarterback Jaxson Dart.)

Best matchups in 2025?

Finally, let’s close by circling the biggest matchups of the 2025 season on our college football calendars. According to the FPI’s projected ratings for both teams, these are the most anticipated games of the season — matchups in which each squad ranks highly, helping to create a high combined matchup quality on ESPN Analytics’ 0-100 scale:

We’ll get one of the best games of the season practically right away, with Week 1 providing Texas-Ohio State — a battle of top-four preseason FPI teams — on Saturday, Aug. 30. That same day, we’ll also get LSU-Clemson, and the next day, we’ll watch Notre Dame travel to Miami to face the Hurricanes in a top-10 FPI matchup.

That sets the tone for a regular season that will feature at least one matchup rated 90 or higher in the FPI matchup quality metric almost every week. But the best week by that metric — with three games rated 90 or higher and five rated 85 or higher — is Week 14, with Ohio State-Michigan, Auburn-Alabama and all of the other usual late-season rivalry games. In addition, three other weeks — Week 5, Week 7 and Week 10 — will carry five games each with a matchup rating of 85 or higher.

That’s a loaded calendar, and it reflects how the meaning of each college football Saturday is changing. Under the old system, one bad week could doom a contender. Now, teams can afford a stumble … but the trade-off is that they also need to prove themselves over more games against top-tier teams.

Regular-season showdowns still matter, too — especially for seeding, byes and home-field advantage. But there’s also more room for redemption, which we saw embodied by both championship game combatant’s last season. And through it all, the FPI gives us a roadmap to help navigate what’s shaping up to be another wild and transformative season of college football.

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Ingram, Newton, RG3, Suh on college HOF ballot

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June 3, 2025

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Ingram, Newton, RG3, Suh on college HOF ballot

  • Associated Press

Jun 2, 2025, 01:27 PM ET

Heisman Trophy winners Mark Ingram, Cam Newton and Robert Griffin III and former AP National Player of the Year Ndamukong Suh are on the ballot for the 2026 College Football Hall of Fame class.

The National Football Foundation released the ballot Monday for the class that will be announced in January. It includes 79 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 100 players and 35 coaches from lower levels.

Ingram became Alabama’s first Heisman winner in 2009 after running for 1,658 yards and 20 touchdowns. Newton in 2010 was just the third player in FBS history with 20 passing and 20 rushing touchdowns. Griffin in 2011 led the nation in points responsible for and ranked second in total offense.

Suh was a force for Nebraska in 2009 and became the first defensive lineman in 15 seasons to be named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. He finished fourth in voting but was honored as the nation’s top player by The Associated Press.

Among other players on the ballot are Iowa’s Brad Banks, Colorado’s Eric Bieniemy, Oklahoma State’s Dez Bryant, Penn State’s Ki-Jana Carter, Pittsburgh’s Aaron Donald, Syracuse’s Marvin Harrison, Oklahoma’s Josh Heupel, Ohio State’s James Laurinaitis, Washington State’s Ryan Leaf, California’s Marshawn Lynch, Illinois’ Simeon Rice and Florida State’s Peter Warrick.

Among coaches on the ballot are Larry Coker, Gary Patterson and Chris Petersen.

Coker led the Canes to consecutive national championship games and won the 2002 Rose Bowl to become the first rookie head coach to lead his team to a title since 1948. Patterson is TCU’s all-time wins leader who led the Horned Frogs to six AP top 10 final rankings. Petersen is Boise State’s all-time wins leader who led the Broncos to two undefeated seasons and led Washington to the 2016 College Football Playoff.

The NFF also announced an adjustment to the eligibility criteria for coaches to be considered for induction. The minimum career winning percentage required for coaching eligibility will go from .600 to .595 beginning in 2027.

The change would make Mike Leach eligible. Leach, who died in 2022, had a .596 winning percentage with a 158-107 record over 21 seasons at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State.

Leach was known for his innovative wide-open offenses and his knack for pulling upsets. He won 18 games against Top 25 opponents when his team was unranked.

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Reacting to the preseason FPI rankings: Who’s overvalued, who’s undervalued

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June 3, 2025

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Reacting to the preseason FPI rankings: Who's overvalued, who's undervalued

ESPN has released its 2025 Football Power Index (FPI) ratings and projections, and our college football reporters are here to break them down.

The ratings, for the uninitiated, include forecasts for every team’s record, its chances of winning a conference title and of course, its probability to make the expanded 12-team playoff and win the national championship.

The FPI is a power rating that tracks each team’s strength relative to an average FBS squad. Teams are rated on offense, defense and special teams, with the values representing points per game.

You can read Neil Paine’s takeaways here and get our staff’s analysis below.

Which team is FPI undervaluing?

Paolo Uggetti: Even though Kenny Dillingham said at Big 12 spring meetings recently that being considered one of the conference’s favorites after being picked to finish last in 2024 is “less fun,” I still think FPI is slightly undervaluing the Sun Devils at No. 24. Sure, they lost star running back Cam Skattebo to the NFL draft, but they also return a quarterback in Sam Leavitt (2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns last year) who could be a Heisman contender, wide receiver Jordyn Tyson (1,101 yards and 10 touchdowns) and defensive back Xavion Alford, among several other starters and stalwarts of last year’s Cinderella season. Dillingham won’t flinch at now being considered a favorite to win the conference and I imagine he’ll have ASU with plenty of fire and motivation come kickoff. It would not shock me to see them make another playoff run.

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1:36

Kenny Dillingham: ASU facing a different type of adversity this year

Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham explains the differences his team is facing this season after coming off a Big 12 title last season.

Mark Schlabach: I think you can argue that Clemson is one of the two best teams in the FBS entering the season (along with Penn State), and it’s certainly one of the best 10, so it’s surprising to see them in at No. 11. In our colleague Jordan Reid’s initial 2026 NFL mock draft, he had four Tigers going in the first round, including quarterback Cade Klubnik at No. 1. Three seasons ago, Clemson fans wondered whether Klubnik was the right guy for the job, now he’s considered one of the most polished passers in the sport, after throwing for 3,639 yards with 36 touchdowns and six interceptions last season. The Tigers have the best defensive line in the FBS, and Reid had tackle Peter Woods and edge rusher T.J. Parker going in the top 10, as well. The Tigers open the season against LSU at home and play at South Carolina in the finale, but I can’t see many ACC teams beating them.

Bill Connelly: There are quite a few non-SEC teams we could choose from here, but I’m going to go with No. 39 Iowa. The Hawkeyes have more to replace on defense than usual, but a) I can’t even pretend like they’ll have anything other than a top-10 or top-15 defense until proven otherwise, and b) the offense improved significantly last year (albeit from horrific to merely mediocre) and might have made a lovely QB upgrade by bringing in South Dakota State’s Mark Gronowski. Losing running back Kaleb Johnson hurts, but this very much feels like a top-25-level team to me, one I trust quite a bit more than quite a few of the teams directly ahead of the Hawkeyes in FPI.

Jake Trotter: Indiana did graduate quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who had a fabulous one season for the Hoosiers while propelling them to the playoff and the first 10-win season in school history. Indiana, however, returns several key players from last year’s squad, including All-Big Ten receiver Elijah Sarratt, defensive end Mikail Kamara, linebacker Aiden Fisher and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds. The Hoosiers also added Cal transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who brought plenty of experience (19 career starts) with him to Bloomington. Curt Cignetti has already proved he can coach. And with no Ohio State or Michigan on the schedule, it wouldn’t be completely stunning if Indiana knocks on the door of playoff contention once again.

Which team is FPI overvaluing?

Trotter: So we’re doing this again, huh? Every preseason, Texas A&M gets top-10 hype. Every season, the Aggies fail to deliver on it. Texas A&M has reached double-digit wins just once this century (the Johnny Football year in 2012). And yet, FPI is giving them the benefit of doubt again as the No. 8-ranked team. Mike Elko is a terrific coach and the Aggies, as always, have talent, including intriguing dual-threat sophomore quarterback Marcel Reed. But the Aggies ranked 51st last year in offensive EPA and 47th in defensive EPA. That hardly screams top 10 team. What’s really there to suggest the Aggies will be any different than what they’ve been?

Connelly: We can’t say for sure that FPI is overvaluing Texas because if Arch Manning lives up to his hype, the Longhorns really might be the best team in the country. However, if he’s merely very good instead of great, then holes elsewhere might become problematic. This is, after all, a team that lost four offensive line starters, its top four defensive linemen and two of the best DBs in the country in Jahdae Barron and Andrew Mukuba. Steve Sarkisian has obviously recruited well, the replacements for those lost linemen could be excellent, and Texas will be very good regardless. But they’re only No. 1 if Arch is an All-American. No pressure.

Uggetti: I’m having a hard time with Miami all the way up at No. 9. I can see the case for it: They have a solid core of players returning throughout the roster and head coach Mario Cristobal and his staff were transfer portal merchants this offseason, bringing in several offensive weapons such as wideouts CJ Daniels (LSU), Keelan Marion (BYU) and Tony Johnson (Cincinnati) as well as some much needed help in the secondary via cornerback Xavier Lucas (Wisconsin) and safety Zechariah Poyser (Jacksonville State). Of course, the crux of the hype surrounding the Hurricanes hinges on their biggest portal addition, quarterback Carson Beck. After losing Cameron Ward to the draft, Cristobal & Co. are banking on Beck (who is coming off surgery for a torn UCL in his right elbow) to be the guy who was supposed to lead Georgia to a national title. Count me among the skeptics.

Schlabach: Given what transpired at Tennessee in the spring, I’m not sure the Volunteers are a top-25 team heading into the season, let alone one that should be ranked No. 10. I didn’t have the Volunteers ranked in my latest Way-Too-Early Top 25. I could see the Vols going one of two ways after quarterback Nico Iamaleava up and left for UCLA following an NIL dispute: The Vols are going to be better off with quarterback Joey Aguilar and his teammates will rally around him, or Augilar’s leap from Appalachian State to the SEC is too high. The Vols were already facing an uphill climb on offense, in my opinion, after SEC leading rusher Dylan Sampson departed, along with three of the team’s top receivers.

Which power conference team outside the FPI top 25 can make a run?

Trotter: Texas Tech landed the nation’s top transfer portal class, beefing up the trenches on both sides of the ball to a team that went 8-5 last season. With 24 career starts behind him, quarterback Behren Morton should be even better after throwing for 3,335 yards and 27 touchdowns last year. If the portal additions playing up front defensively, combined with the arrival of new defensive coordinator Shiel Wood, can bolster a unit that ranked just 108th in EPA last year, the Red Raiders could threaten for a conference title and playoff berth in what figures to be another wide-open Big 12.

Connelly: I would say that half the Big 12 is capable of playing at a top-15 or top-20 level and making a conference title (and, therefore, CFP) run, but I’m particularly intrigued by the duo of No. 32 TCU and No. 33 Baylor. They both won six of their last seven to end the season, and they both return stellar quarterbacks in Josh Hoover (TCU) and Sawyer Robertson (Baylor). I feel like I trust TCU’s returning personnel more, but Baylor’s Dave Aranda was extremely active in the transfer portal, too. The Revivalry — hey, it’s a better name than Bluebonnet Battle — is on October 18, and the winner will probably head into November as a serious Big 12 contender.

Uggetti: Washington (No. 27) had a disappointing 6-7 season in its first year in the Big 12 under new coach Jedd Fisch. The Huskies finished ninth in the conference and seem to have quietly stumbled into the shadow of their more successful Pacific Northwest neighbor, Oregon. But Fisch, like he showed at Arizona, can build a successful team over time. Washington brought in a top-25 recruiting class this past year and added some much-needed defensive reinforcements in the portal. Snagging four-star wide receiver Johntay Cook II from Texas will be a boon for expected starting quarterback Demond Williams Jr. who, after showing some flashes last season, could be primed for a breakout.

Which team’s odd ranking will be proven correct by the end of the season?

Schlabach: There’s a smorgasbord of “odd” rankings to select from. I think you can argue that No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 14 Auburn, No. 16 Oklahoma and No. 19 USC are probably ranked too high, and No. 12 LSU, No. 29 BYU, No. 31 Indiana and No. 35 Texas Tech are too low. LSU might have the SEC’s best quarterback in Garrett Nussmeier, and coach Brian Kelly struck gold in the transfer portal, landing defensive ends Patrick Payton (Florida State) and Jack Pyburn (Florida), receivers Nic Anderson (Oklahoma) and Barion Brown (Kentucky), offensive linemen Braelin Moore (Virginia Tech) and Josh Thompson (Northwestern) and cornerback Mansoor Delane (Virginia Tech). But LSU’s schedule is difficult, with road games at Clemson, Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma, and I’m not sure they’ll be better than 9-3, which would put them right about No. 12.

Uggetti: I’ll take one of the teams Mark mentioned and focus on USC. At first glance, I was also surprised that FPI has them all the way up to No. 19 given the Trojans are coming off a disappointing 7-6 debut season in the Big 10. But the Trojans have made several strides this offseason, not just as a program by hiring general manager Chad Bowden from USC, but also as a team to put themselves in position to surprise in 2025. The defense continues to use the portal to add key talent such as defensive tackles Jamaal Jarrett (Georgia) and Keeshawn Silver (Kentucky). The most exciting player on the team, however, may be incoming freshman defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, who is likely to make an impact right away. A lot of the Trojans’ hopes this season are riding on quarterback Jayden Maiava and how he fares in his first full season as a starter. He finished with 1,201 yards and 11 touchdowns last season and a second year in Lincoln Riley’s offense should serve him well. USC’s schedule starts off slow, but the true test of the Trojans’ potential will be on the back end when they face a stretch of Illinois, Michigan and Notre Dame before finishing the season with Oregon, Iowa and UCLA.

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