We're less than 48 hours from the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2025 season, but the most important weekly rankings are out each Monday morning.
VIBES UP
1. Texas Tech: Texas Tech looked like the Texas Tech we've all come to know and love since 2025, dominating with defense, running game, and a healthy Behren Morton running point. GameDay will come to town for the first time since the infamous Michael Crabtree game in 2008, with a national audience tuning in on ABC immediately after. Joey McGuire proclaimed back in 2022 that the Big 12 would soon run through Lubbock; here's his chance to make that happen.
2. BYU: BYU has won a national championship, an only-in-the-poll-era title in 1984 in which the Cougars did not face a ranked team after their opener, and clinched that title on Dec. 21 with a Holiday Bowl win over unranked Michigan. So, it's premature to say this is the biggest game in school history -- but No. 8 BYU at No. 9 Texas Tech (noon ET, ABC) will be the first top-10 game in program history.
3. Ohio State: Here's a thought I had while grocery shopping on Sunday -- what's the record for longest streak as the AP No. 1. Ohio State, who was never the No. 1 until winning the 2024 title, has been the AP's top team since Week 2, and if they're able to win this year's title -- big if, obviously -- they'll be the clear-cut top program in the sport and they return Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith next year. In the meantime, the Buckeyes have won 12 straight, with 11 by double digits.
4. Virginia: Virginia has never been 5-0 in ACC play, until now. The Cavs are alone in first place in the ACC, and in the midst of the program's longest win streak since 2007. Beat Wake Forest on Saturday and the streak will be the longest since winning 10 straight from 1951-52.
5. SMU: There are worse ways to spend a weekend than locking up your head coach for the immediate term after interest from an SEC program in his home state, and then beating No. 10 Miami at home the following afternoon. Rhett Lashlee is 21-1 in his last 22 regular-season conference games.
6. North Texas: The Mean Green are one of those programs that could be No. 1 every week. North Texas knocked off 7-0 Navy, and held the Midshipmen to 17 points while doing so, to continue the program's best start since 1977.
7. Oklahoma: The pain of losing at Tennessee would've been enormous, but so is the joy of victory. At 7-2, Oklahoma's goals are still out in front of them -- and the late-stage schedule no longer seems as daunting with Missouri down a quarterback and LSU playing out the string. More importantly, Sooners 33, Volunteers 27 validates everything Brent Venables has been building toward. The mission continues.
8. Ole Miss: Growth is avoiding the same trap you fell into twice last season. An uneventful 16-point win over South Carolina moves the Rebels one step closer to their first SEC championship game and CFP appearance. They're not in the clubhouse, but they can see it from the 16th fairway.
9. Kennesaw State: Playing on Tuesday nights gets the Owls on TV, but also lost in the shuffle in the weekly college football take economy (take-onomy?). After going 2-10 a year ago, Kennesaw State is now bowl eligible for the first time in program history and tied for first in Conference USA.
10. Duke: Unlike a certain Tobacco Road rival, Duke did the math, decided to go all-in on football, and actually got it right. The Blue Devils are on their way to a fourth straight winning season, still in the ACC race, and just won at Clemson for the first time since 1980.
VIBES DOWN
1. Miami: Miami fans are in for a special kind of pain so long as Mario Cristobal is the head coach, which is apparently going to be for a while. You're always going to have a roster capable of competing for conference and national titles, but you're rarely going to win your conference and a national title will always be a pipe dream. Cristobal missed the CFP with a Pac-12 champion Oregon squad led by Justin Herbert because he couldn't beat an unranked Arizona State team on the road in November, and those issues have followed him to Miami. Cristobal is now 1-6 in November road games, with two more still ahead. The Hurricanes are plus-4 in turnover margin on the season, but were minus-4 in losses to Louisville and SMU.
2. Clemson: So, this is what Clemson is now. That's six straight home losses to Power 4 opponents, along with a 3-7 mark in their last 10 against the Power 4. The fact that the Florida State game is in primetime on ACC Network is like a band that used to play arenas coming back on tour to the same cities playing in a club. I wonder if The Athletic will still rank Dabo as the third best coach in college football this offseason.
3. Nebraska
3. Tennessee: There's no shame in losing to USC or Oklahoma at home, but you just look flat out silly doing it in black uniforms. Just can't lose those games. Both programs harbored faint conference/CFP hopes that were extinguished on Saturday night -- to quote Scott Cochran, they dressed like that because they were going to their own funeral. For Nebraska, you now have to play out the string of a season where you clearly don't trust your freshman backup quarterback to throw more than three yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
5. Boston College: What were you doing on Sept. 27? Can you even remember back that far? That's the last time BC played a game closer than 14 points. Their last win came at the expense of Fordham on Aug. 30, and their last win over an FBS team was on Nov. 30, 2024.