Ohio State has ascended to the top spot in the Associated Press’ Top 25 college football rankings after the Buckeyes’ Week 1 win over previous No. 1 Texas on Saturday, but there is still a long way to go before the College Football Playoff is decided.
Looking back at the AP Top 25 following Week 1 of last season and comparing it to the final standings and College Football Playoff (CFP) gives an idea of how drastically things change over the course of a regular season.
The 2024 college football season was the first to feature a 12-team playoff. Ohio State would ultimately prevail over Notre Dame in the National Championship Game on January 20 by a final score of 34-23. Interestingly, neither of the final two were among the four schools to receive a first-round bye in the College Football Playoffs.
Even more compelling is that four of the teams that ultimately did make the College Football Playoffs in 2024 – Boise State, Arizona State, Indiana and SMU – were not ranked in the AP Top 25 after Week 1 of last season.
Boise State (No. 3) and Arizona State (No. 4) not only made the Playoff, but were two of the four teams to receive first-round byes. The Broncos, however, would not appear in the AP Top 25 rankings until Week 4. Arizona State, meanwhile, did not show up until mid-November, which was their first appearance in the poll since 2021. Indiana debuted in Week 5, and SMU first appeared in the poll in Week 6.
The 2024 Top 25 after Week 1 saw Georgia in the top spot, receiving 50 first-place votes after throttling Clemson 34-3 to open last season. The Bulldogs were also No. 1 in the pre-season rankings and would ultimately earn the No. 2 seed in CFP after winning the SEC Championship game. Kirby Smart’s squad, however, fell to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals after receiving an opening-round bye.
Eventual champion Ohio State stayed at No. 2 in the Top 25 rankings after Week 1 of 2024. They opened last season with a tune-up win over Akron, but would drop contests to Oregon and Michigan along the way and arrived to the Playoffs as an 8-seed.
Florida State was a Top 10 team preseason in 2024, but fell out of the rankings completely after the Week 1 update. The Seminoles would only win two games last season, but are one of the resurrected programs early in the 2025 season, now ranked at No. 14 after Saturday’s season-opening win over Alabama.
The highest-ranked teams after Week 1 in 2024 to not make the College Football Playoff were Alabama (No. 4), Ole Miss (No. 6), Missouri (No. 9) and Michigan (No. 10).
Week 1 of the 2025 college football season provided greater insight into which teams are contenders and which are pretenders, but as last year’s Week 1 AP Top 25 shows us, there is still a lot of football to be played and a lot of movement ahead before we get to the postseason.
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