Four weeks into the college football season, the preseason guesses are finally giving way to what’s actually happening on Saturdays. That shift has made the CBS Sports 138 feel a lot less like a projection and a lot more like a weekly verdict.
Florida is one of the clearest examples. After opening SEC play 2-0 and following up with a 52-28 win against Ole Miss, the Gators are back inside the top 10 at No.
- That’s a 14-spot climb over the last two weeks, and it puts Florida right back in the mix with the league’s best teams.
At the very top, Texas and Georgia are still holding the top two spots, but the order is getting tighter. The Longhorns sit at No. 1 with an average ballot ranking of 1.4, while the Bulldogs are right behind at 1.9. There isn’t a unanimous answer for the top team, but there is a clear tier, and those two programs are leading it.
The rest of the top 10 has a familiar look, though not without some movement. Miami is No.
3, Notre Dame No. 4, Ohio State has climbed to No. 5, and Indiana, Alabama, BYU and Ole Miss round out the group.
LSU checks in at No. 11 just outside the top 10, while Texas Tech, Iowa, Utah and Oregon fill out the next stretch.
A few teams that started the year with bigger expectations are now sliding well down the board. Texas A&M and Oklahoma are the most notable examples, both now outside the top 35 after early-season setbacks.
The Aggies are down at No. 39, while the Sooners have fallen to No. 48.
For both teams, the talent is still obvious, but the rankings are being driven by results now, not reputation.
There’s also been a wave of movement from teams that have started strong and forced voters to adjust. UCLA is up to No. 17 after its 54-3 rout at Maryland, while Oklahoma State has jumped to No. 20 and Duke to No.
- Wake Forest is the biggest riser in the top 25, landing at No. 23 after a road win against Louisville.
Wake Forest’s move is tied to more than just one good Saturday. The Demon Deacons are 3-1, with their only loss coming to Miami, and even that defeat came by 13 points in what has been the Hurricanes’ toughest game so far. Beating Louisville gave Wake Forest a real spotlight moment, and now the team gets to protect that new standing through a stretch of winnable ACC games.
Oklahoma State’s rise comes after a rough opening loss to Tulsa, but voters are clearly weighing the Cowboys’ win against Oregon and their conference road victory at West Virginia. Duke, meanwhile, continues to climb as a 4-0 team with multiple power conference wins. The Blue Devils have been hanging around the top 35 since beating Illinois in Week 2, and the rest of the field has now opened the door a bit wider.
UCLA’s jump was fueled by more than just the score in College Park. The Bruins controlled Maryland from start to finish, out-gaining the Terps 475-to-180 and allowing only one third-down conversion all game. That kind of performance on the road got the voters’ attention fast.
On the other side of the ledger, Louisville took one of the sharpest drops in the rankings, falling 16 spots to No. 33 after another close loss. Texas A&M also slid 16 places, and Penn State dropped 18 spots to No. 32 after blowing a double-digit lead at home to Wisconsin. Oklahoma’s 17-spot fall is another stark reminder that defense alone won’t carry a team forever if the offense keeps stalling.
The CBS Sports 138 is compiled from ballots submitted each week by college football experts from CBS Sports and 247Sports, then averaged together. For now, the message from the rankings is simple: the teams playing best are moving up, and the preseason labels are disappearing fast.
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