College football re-rank reveals SEC, Big Ten lose grip on dominance

Jason Jones

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College football re-rank reveals SEC, Big Ten lose grip on dominance image

The college football season has come to an end with the Indiana Hoosiers making history with their first-ever national championship. Now that the season has been decided, the speculation comes. Too early top 25 rankings are out. Which conference has the edge going into 2026 and re-rankings?

USA Today released their re-rank of the top 136 Division 1 football programs. Their rankings allows for several different criterias and respective projections. While USA Today re-ranked them all, we'll focus on the top 50 teams specifically, and quantify names not often found between 51-136.

The biggest argument for years, especially at the top, is who reigns over college football as the best conference. Many have argued that title belongs to the SEC until further notice. However, the re-rank does not paint a picture of SEC or Big Ten dominance.

What the data does show is an almost mathematically balanced perspective of the slowly changing landscape. Despite traditional fans dislike the NIL and Transfer Portal era, those aspects are doing exactly what they were intended to do, which is create parity.

Top 5

If you asked 100 Power Four fans across the board, the likely outcome of what the top 5 should look like would be what the re-rank shows. Five spots, two SEC teams, two Big Ten teams and one ACC team. In order, Indiana, Miami, Ole Miss, Oregon, and Georgia.

That would not only seem accurate for most fans, but it also represents a reality created during the playoff era and more notably in the last three years. Instead of it being NIL and the transfer portal are diminishing how much players care about a storied program with history and hardware.

Top 10 (top 5 + the next five)

The Top 10 continues to match expectations. Whether that is blue bloods holding onto their history and track record or newcomers forcing their way into the top 10. Those additional teams are Ohio State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, and BYU.

Ohio State, Notre Dame and even Texas A&M to some degrees are not surprises. If Ohio State is not in the top 5, they certainly should show up in the top 10 as 2011 was the last time they weren't in the Top 10. Texas A&M and its resources explain their top 10 ranking.

Where this shifts slightly is the realization some viewers have not reached yet. BYU with its massive fanbase and alumni base, as well as Texas Tech and its resources are going to be players for years to come.

Top 25 (Top 10 + the next 15)

The top 25 might begin to upset some traditional fans. Someone must go down for someone else to go up. Teams 11-25 are a collection of teams that historically don’t find themselves as ranking neighbors.

Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, USC and Michigan find themselves in the same range as Utah, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Houston, and Illinois. At any given point in recent memory, these teams have made Top 25 noise if not multiple championships throughout history.

Those noteworthy contending programs are within the same range as Group of Five schools like Tulane, James Madison, North Texas, and Navy. Alabama and Texas being in the same group with Utah and Houston is one thing. Being in the same range with four other G5 schools should feel like new territory.

Top 50 (Top 25 + the next 25)

To this point the distribution of conferences has followed what many expected. Each group of teams has been led by the SEC and the Big Ten. Until viewing those teams just on the outside of the projected Top 25.

With the college football playoff headed toward another expansion, the teams just outside the top 25 are bound to create some ranking movement. Especially when some of the SEC and Big Ten teams typically found towards the top have yet to be mentioned.

As long as the playoff remains 12-teams or less, viewers are less likely to concern themselves with teams outside the top 25. However, if the format moves to 16 or even 24 teams, the range outside the Top 25 will become more of a factor. SEC and Big Ten led the first groups with two Top 5 teams, five Top 10 teams, and seven top 25 teams.

TCU, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Washington, Arizona State and even Penn State. All of which are below the 25^th spot.

26-50 is the first group of teams where the SEC and the Big Ten are not holding most of the available spots. For the first time in this breakdown, there are more Group of Five teams than Power 4 teams.

Notables outside the Top 50 (51-136)

Typically, if a team is ranked outside the Top 50, they are of little consequence. However, as NIL and the transfer portal have leveled the traditional playing field, some big names have fallen far.

Whether it’s related to historical standing or a down team that hired a promising coach and expects to bounce back, these names should be surprising when they are mentioned outside the Top 50.

Clemson, LSU, Mississippi State, Baylor, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, UCLA, Colorado, Nebraska and Syracuse all find themselves outside the top 50. For Virginia Tech, UCLA, Colorado and Syracuse, those storied programs are all outside the Top 100.

The long and short of it is “welcome to the new world order of college football”. The sport may already be beyond the point of the same SEC and Big Ten schools ruling the sport. The Indiana Hoosiers being the National Champions of college football should have sent that message.

The playing field is leveling and the histories of programs like Alabama, Ohio State, and USC are no longer the only option for the country’s elite players. The vast majority of elite players are no longer looking at the elite blue bloods as an opportunity to sit for three years and bide their time. There are other ways now and teams outside the traditional top 10 are gaining ground.