The college football rankings have a slightly different release schedule in Week 1, allowing voters in the AP Top 25 poll to take in all of the action across a five-day game week before resorting their ballots. So while most of the action from the first full weekend of the 2026 season has completed, we still have four more games before the full post-Week 1 picture is complete. And since the action remaining includes multiple ranked teams, we don't have a full top 25 projection just yet on Saturday night.
Usually, here in the Tomorrow's Top 25 Today space, we can give a full rundown of what we think the new top 25 will look like on Sunday. With the unique schedule, we're left to wait until Monday night for the full top 25 projection and stick with some rankings-focused takeaways here on Saturday night. Week 1 included some lopsided results on the top 25 scoreboard that will keep many voters stuck in their preseason opinions about top teams, but we've identified a few performances that could have voters rethinking their stance and shaking up the rankings heading into Week 2.
The ranking adjustments in these situations may be just a few spots in the top 25, but it would signal a change in how teams have or have not lived up to expectations in their first game of the season. With no concern about Ohio State's No. 1 status following a 53-point win against Ball State, the conversation begins at No. 2 with some potential fallout from the Ducks surviving an upset scare. The margins are simply too thin at the top to think that AP voters won't reshuffle the top of their ballots in a way that results in the Ducks giving up at least a spot or two following the 34-27 win against Boise State.
Oregon was one of five teams that received first-place votes in the preseason balloting, and that group doesn't include No. 3 Georgia, which is not too far off the pace in voting points. The Ducks had a strong argument for No. 1 and didn't play their best on a big stage in their first game of the season. Dan Lanning will take a win and a strong performance from star quarterback Dante Moore as positives, but there's a lot of room for improvement in terms of Oregon meeting the expectations that they have for themselves, much less the expectations of the AP voters.
Before Week 1, there was a solid argument for Oregon being the best of those national title contenders in the top seven of the rankings. But given the quality of Saturday's performance, some voters will be changing their position on the Ducks. The primary question is how high LSU will climb after an absolute throttling of a Clemson team ranked No. 23 in the Coaches Poll and finishing 26th in the AP poll voting in the preseason.
Lane Kiffin's Tigers looked faster at every turn and simply in a different weight class from the visitors from the ACC, and it's sensible to predict that any voters doubting LSU's standing as a potential College Football Playoff contender had some of their concerns alleviated with the blowout win. Now there is still probably a ceiling for how high LSU can climb with that top seven group still holding strong in their own tier, a fact that's backed up by the first-place votes and the voting points, but an AP poll move into the top 10 should be expected and depending on Ole Miss' result on Sunday night the Tigers could find themselves as high as No. 8 when the new college football rankings reset on Tuesday. AP voters were relatively cautious with Alabama on their preseason ballots, resulting in the first set of preseason rankings since 2007 that the Crimson Tide were not ranked inside the top 10.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
