Indiana finishes No. 1 in the final USA TODAY Sports NCAA Re-Rank 1-136 season after beating Miami in the College Football Playoff championship game.
The Hoosiers’ climb to No. 1 began at No. 24 in the preseason re-rank. Miami finishes No. 2 after opening the season ranked No. 9.
Rounding out the top 10 are No. 3 Mississippi, No. 4 Oregon, No. 5 Georgia, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 7 Texas Tech, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 10 Brigham Young.
The Rebels finished first among two-loss teams after avenging a regular-season loss to Georgia in the playoff quarterfinals. Ole Miss beat Tulane in the opening round and lost to Miami in the semifinals on a late touchdown.
The final top 25 features seven teams from both the Big Ten and SEC, four teams from the Big 12, two from the ACC, four from the Group of Five and one independent in the Fighting Irish.
LOOKING AHEAD: Our way-too-early college football Top 25 for 2026
The final re-rank includes a shakeup after bowl play. Teams climbing after the postseason include No. 15 Virginia (up six spots), No. 25 Illinois (up 15), No. 26 TCU (up 12) and No. 34 Old Dominion (up 12).
No. 18 Vanderbilt (down five spots), No. 44 UNLV (down 11), No. 56 Clemson (down seven) and No. 63 Nebraska (down seven) are among the teams dropping after bowl losses.
A look back at the preseason re-rank reveals some major misses, starting at the top with then-No. 1 Penn State and No. 3 Clemson. The other big misses were Kansas State (No. 13 in the debut re-rank), No. 20 South Carolina) and Boise State (No. 23).
