College Football Rankings 2025-26 - CBS Sports Rankings 1 Texas 5 UGA 8 Bama 9 LSU 10 Miami 12 UF 16 South Carolina 18 A&M 20 Tennessee 22 Ole Miss 24 Oklahoma 28 Missouri 32 Auburn 41 FSU 43 Arkansas 47 Vandy 57 UK 70 Miss St 74 UCF 81 USF
ESPN's Tier 3: Someone in the SEC has to lose games, too (six teams) Florida Oklahoma Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Fun fact: All 16 SEC teams rank among the 20 hardest schedules in the country, according to ESPN's metrics, from the grueling path for Florida (No. 1) to the easy (relatively speaking) slate at Missouri (No. 20). We know you're shocked to learn that life is difficult in the SEC. The league so rarely mentions its depth or strength of schedule, and its coaches are reticent to suggest that their teams deserve any additional benefit of the doubt as a result. Oh wait, they're actually contractually obligated to mention it in every interview. Lane Kiffin drew the ire of some ACC fans when he said another SEC coach suggested it'd be easier to play Clemson each week than an SEC schedule. That may have been an exaggeration, but according to ESPN Research, a slate that included eight games against Clemson plus a reasonable nonconference schedule would work out to be almost exactly as difficult as the schedule Florida plays this season. The Gators play eight teams that have spent time in the AP top 10 in the past two seasons, all of whom have rosters made of a majority blue-chip recruits. By SP+, the Gators get six of the top 13 teams (and also Long Island). It's a schedule DJ Lagway called "fun" and Florida fans call "less enjoyable than a root canal." Now, others may parse the data differently, but the bottom line is inarguable: No one in the SEC has an easy ride to the playoff, which makes Tier 3 likely to include at least two playoff teams and at least two schools that fire their coaches, and the difference between those camps will be a few plays one way or the other. The SEC is designed to eat itself, which is one of the reasons it has pushed so hard for increased playoff access. There's simply not a scenario in which every school that invests in winning, has a playoff-caliber roster and whose fans expect to make a playoff run, will actually do so.
