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Mike's top 25 college football teams heading into Week 4 of the 2025 season. His complete top 25 rankings, including Ohio State State, LSU, and more.
Week 4 College Football Power Rankings
It was another wild week in Week 3 of the 2025 college football season. Three more ranked teams fell, one of them to an unranked (in the AP, but what the hell do they know? I had the team ranked) team. That caused a few more shakeups in my rankings.
In case you’re new here, my rankings for the season are based entirely on what has happened on the field, not on speculation. Teams such as Penn State and Indiana, who have feasted on cupcakes so far, are ranked much lower in my rankings. Ranked wins carry more weight, as do road wins and wins against Power 4 teams. You know…the way it should be. It will all even itself out once teams play good teams every week. I promise. Don’t panic when you don’t see Indiana and Penn State in here at all. There are high school teams that play tougher schedules than the first three weeks of those two teams.
25. South Carolina (2-1)
Last week: 12 (⇓13)
Result: L 7-31 vs. (11) Vanderbilt
I toyed with the idea of not ranking South Carolina at all since it appears as though LaNorris Sellers is going to miss some time. The Gamecocks don’t have enough around him to stay afloat in the SEC if that’s the case. Still, getting blown off your home field in the land of the constantly crowing rooster is suboptimal and may have happened even if Sellers had been able to return. That defense was gouged.
24. Utah (3-0)
Last week: NR
Result: W 31-6 at Wyoming
Calling UCLA a power team is the ultimate oxymoron. The fans at the Rose Bowl on Friday couldn’t have filled Northwestern’s beautiful little palace by the lake. However, beating Wyoming in Laramie is a decent achievement. Welcome back, Utah.
23. California (3-0)
Last week: NR
Result: W 27-14 vs. Minnesota
True freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele has been the most exciting freshman quarterback in college football so far, yet no one is talking about him. They invented DVR for a reason, people. Go watch a Cal game. I promise it will be fun. Sagapolutele will make it worth your while.
22. Nebraska (3-0)
Last week: 25 (⇑3)
Result: W 59-7 vs. Houston Christian
A “neutral site” win over Cincinnati keeps Nebraska ranked, but Arrowhead Stadium was chock-full of Nebraska fans. It wasn’t much of a road game. It just meant Nebraska fans had to drive three hours instead of three minutes to get to the game.
21. USC (3-0)
Last week: NR
Result: W 33-17 vs. Purdue
I’m not a believer in Purdue, but it’s a road conference win. There are a lot of teams that haven’t even bothered to play a Power 4 team yet. That puts the Trojans and their high-powered offense in the rankings for now.
20. Missouri (3-0)
Last week: 20 ⇔
Result: W 52-10 vs. Louisiana
I’m not sure how good the win against Kansas really is, but it’s a win in a heated rivalry against a team that is in the top half of the Big 12 (16). That counts for something. Missouri’s running game has been impressive so far.
19. Tulane (3-0)
Last week: NR
Result: W 34-27 vs. Duke
Tulane collects another Power 4 scalp to vault them into the rankings. Both wins were at home, and one is the second-worst Power 4 team, but it still counts. Jake Retzlaff has not only effectively replaced Darian Mensah, but he beat him in his return to New Orleans.
18. Auburn (3-0)
Last week: 19 (⇑1)
Result: W 31-15 vs. South Alabama
The win in Waco is keeping the Tigers afloat. That was an uninspired showing against South Alabama. South Alabama is one of the better teams in the Sun Belt, but if Auburn is “back,” they need to handle games like this. They only beat the Jaguars by two more than they beat Baylor by…and this one was at home!
17. Tennessee (2-1)
Last week: 15 (⇓2)
Result: L 41-44 (OT) vs. (24) Georgia
I’m not going to dock the Vols too much for losing to Georgia, but they are lacking the big win that would help keep them afloat.
16. Oregon (3-0)
Last week: 13 (⇓3)
Result: W 34-14 at Northwestern
It’s a Power 4 win on the road, but come on…it’s Northwestern. And Oregon didn’t even bother to bring the inflatable duck to put on Lake Michigan. That epic fail alone is enough to move them down.
15. Illinois (3-0)
Last week: 9 (⇓6)
Result: W 38-0 vs. Western Michigan
The Illini started slow, but scored 28 points in the second half. Another loss by Duke cheapens the Power 4 road win a bit, so other teams jumped ahead of Illinois. It’s nothing they did.
14. Texas (2-1)
Last week: 14 ⇔
Result: W 27-10 vs. UTEP
If Arch Manning is hurt and Texas is playing him anyway, it’s reprehensible…especially given the quality of opponents in the last two games. If Arch isn’t hurt, there’s a problem. He had a string of 10 straight incompletions against UTEP. UTEP! Arch will be fine at some point, but Texas may need to temper its expectations in the meantime.
13. Iowa State (4-0)
Last week: 8 (⇓5)
Result: W 24-16 at Arkansas State
Wow, this team looked like a team that beat its two biggest rivals — one in Dublin, Ireland — and a top-5 FCS team before heading to Jonesboro. ISU dives because the win over Kansas State doesn’t look all that good anymore.
12. South Florida (2-1)
Last week: 5 (⇓7)
Result: L 12-49 at (3) Miami (FL)
Texas has the “best” loss, but have they beaten two ranked teams, one of them on the road? No? USF still belongs here as the highest-rated one-loss team.
11. Mississippi State (3-0)
Last week: 7 (⇓4)
Result: W 63-0 vs. Alcorn State
The offense is running smoothly for the first time since the untimely death of Mike Leach.
10. Oklahoma (3-0)
Last week: 6 (⇓4)
Result: W 42-3 at Temple
How tough has it been to be an Oklahoma fan since Bob Stoops retired? The Sooners are 3-0 for the fifth consecutive season, for the first time since 1999-2004. John Mateer looked really good once again. The biggest story was track star Tory Blaylock rushing for over 100 yards. He appears to be RB1 for the Sooners, so they finally have that sorted out.
9. Mississippi (3-0)
Last week: 10 (⇑1)
Result: W 41-35 vs. Arkansas
I’m going to go ahead and move the Rebels up since they beat a conference opponent with a quarterback making his first FBS start. Trinidad Chambliss was a star at Division II Ferris State, where he played in front of 60,000 fans per year. He got more than that in his first start at Oxford. Chambliss picked apart Arkansas for 353 yards on 21-of-29 passing to keep the Rebels from losing what everyone considered a trap game, even before it was announced that Austin Simmons couldn’t play.
There may be a quarterback controversy in Oxford now. Chambliss was sharp on most of his throws and didn’t turn it over. Simmons threw four interceptions in the first two games.
8. Georgia Tech (3-0)
Last week: 21 (⇑13)
Result: W 24-21 vs. (18) Clemson
That Georgia Tech defense has a nasty streak to it. They harassed Cade Klubnik for the entire game. Haynes King played hero ball to carry Tech to a win that establishes them as a player in the ACC this year. Miami, Florida State, and Georgia are leading the ACC. What is this, 2009?
7. Florida State (2-0)
Last week: 4 (⇓3)
Result: BYE
Bye weeks are tough this early in the season, but we have more coming up this week. Florida State’s win over Alabama still holds weight, but teams beating other ranked teams on the road have the Seminoles moving down a bit.
6. Texas A&M (3-0)
Last week: 16 (⇑10)
Result: W 41-40 at (17) Notre Dame
The Aggies won a road game against a top 10 team (in the AP) for the first time since 2004. It was all because of Marcel Reed. Reed was sharp in the first half and recovered from a couple of second-half miscues to throw the game-winning touchdown with 13 seconds left.
It feels different in Aggieland right now. The Aggies have been ranked in the preseason for seven consecutive years, the most in school history. Only once (2020) have the Aggies finished the season ranked.
5. Vanderbilt (3-0)
Last week: 11 (⇑6)
Result: W 31-7 at (10) South Carolina
I’m not the only one who had South Carolina highly ranked, but I still feel like this one needs to come with a grain of salt. The Gamecocks were driving to tie the game in the second quarter when LaNorris Sellers went down. Luke Doty didn’t play that poorly, but he wasn’t much of a threat either. The South Carolina offense wasn’t the same.
4. Georgia (3-0)
Last week: 24 (⇑20)
Result: W 44-41 (OT) at (15) Tennessee
Georgia was in trouble early in this game, and some things in the game show the Bulldogs still have plenty of work to do. This is the game that Georgia fans were waiting for from Gunner Stockton. The run defense was solid. Allowing Chris Brazzell II loose in the secondary a couple of times has to sting. When the dust settled, it was a road conference win against a top-15 opponent.
3. Ohio State (3-0)
Last week: 1 (⇓2)
Result: W 37-9 vs. Ohio
The Buckeyes started slow, but rolled in the second half. Julian Sayin picked up 347 passing yards, 153 of those to Jeremiah Smith. There are Big Ten (18) defenses that are worse than Ohio’s. We’re going to see more big games from this pair.
The win over Texas is maybe the best singular win of the season yet, but teams with two ranked wins should be ranked accordingly in the early going.
2. LSU
Last week: 2 ⇔
Result: W 20-10 vs. Florida
It was another week that LSU’s offense was stymied, but the defense shone once again. They picked off DJ Lagway five times. LSU has a ranked road win and a ranked home win, but as of now, neither one of those teams is ranked in my rankings. Those teams are a combined 2-4. Just how good are LSU’s wins?
1. Miami (FL) (3-0)
Last week: 3 (⇑2)
Result: W 49-12 vs. (5) South Florida
Miami demolished the South Florida team, which just won at The Swamp last week. The Bulls are still ranked, but both of Miami’s ranked wins are at home. The Hurricanes leapfrog to the top because of the blowout nature of the win, and the fact that beating USF is probably worth more than either of LSU’s ranked wins.
