Week 1 of the 2026 college football season could hardly have gone better for the SEC.
The league opened with a clean 16-0 record, and the top-ranked teams didn’t just win - they flattened people. Every ranked SEC program in the mix won by at least 35 points, setting an early tone that was impossible to miss.
Georgia stayed planted at the top of the 247Sports SEC poll after a 63-3 dismantling of Tennessee State. No.
3 Georgia got touchdowns from quarterback Gunner Stockton, who threw for three scores, and from running back Nate Frazier, who found the end zone three times on the ground. Kirby Smart’s team scored touchdowns on its first five possessions, with Frazier breaking a 48-yard run on his first carry and later adding a 14-yard touchdown on his second.
Texas also held firm near the top after making a loud first impression with its revamped offense. The No.
5 Longhorns rolled past Texas State, 56-7, behind Arch Manning’s 305 passing yards and four touchdowns. Two of those scores went to Auburn transfer wide receiver Cam Coleman, and NC State transfer Hollywood Smothers added 70 yards on 10 carries.
Steve Sarkisian said, “I don't know if it could have kind of went better at the start of the game," said Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian. "You know, it's like you go out on defense, get a stop and the ball on offense, then you call a run and it breaks for 40 [yards] to start the game.
I thought offensively, it was a really clean first half up until the last [offensive] play."
The biggest surge in the poll belonged to LSU, and the Tigers earned it with the weekend’s most eye-opening result. In Baton Rouge, Lane Kiffin’s LSU team blasted Clemson 51-10, piling up 644 yards of offense and handing Clemson its worst loss in nearly 30 years. LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt ran for 113 yards and two touchdowns while also throwing for 230 yards and a score, and Jordan Ross added a defensive touchdown by returning an interception.
That performance pushed LSU up into third in this week’s poll, ahead of Ole Miss, Texas A&M and the rest of the conference pack.
Here’s how the 247Sports SEC poll looks after Week 1:
Georgia (11) --
Texas (1) --
LSU (2) -- +4
Ole Miss -- -1
Texas A&M -- -2
Oklahoma --
Alabama -- -2
Tennessee --
Florida -- +1
Missouri -- -1
South Carolina --
Auburn --
Mississippi State -- +1
Vanderbilt -- -1
Kentucky --
Arkansas --
Parentheses indicates first-place votes -- plus or minus indicates how many spots that team rose or fell from the previous week's poll.
This is the fourth straight season that writers from around the 247Sports network are voting in an SEC poll. Each week, beat writers from the conference’s 247Sports sites rank the league’s 16 teams, tracking the race for playoff spots and the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta on Saturday, Dec.
5, 2026. The title game will air at 4 p.m.
ET on ABC.
Georgia beat Alabama in last season’s championship game to win the league title.
National 247Sports reporters also take part in the voting.
In Other News...
Texas Made Its Week 1 Statement But One Poll Question Remains
Texas opened the season with the kind of performance that tends to stick with voters, and in a crowded Week 1 landscape that mattered just as much as the win itself. Across the AP Top 25, several of the teams sitting near the top handled business in varying fashion, with Ohio State and Georgia among the other major names under review as the first rankings of the fall start to settle into place.
For Texas, the larger question is not whether the Longhorns made an early statement, but how much that statement will move them when the new poll comes out. Week 1 was full of small shifts rather than seismic ones, even as Michigan escaped with a controversial Hail Mary finish and other ranked teams offered enough evidence to nudge the order a little in either direction. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dames Early ESPN Ranking Says Plenty After Week 1
Arch Mannings debut in 2026 was enough to keep Texas perched at the top of ESPNs updated FPI Top 25 after Week 1, a ranking that reflects how convincing the Longhorns looked in their win over Texas State. Manning threw for 305 yards and four touchdowns, and the early polling from ESPNs system put Texas ahead of an opening-week field that also includes Ohio State, Notre Dame, Miami and Georgia near the top.
Ohio State settled in at No. 2 after handling Ball State, which only adds a little more intrigue to what comes next for Texas. The Longhorns have already done the part that mattered most in Week 1, but the bigger measuring-stick game is sitting right ahead, and thats where the No. 1 label will either start to feel earned or get tested in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Suddenly Have A Derrek Cooper Problem They Didn't Expect
Texas had been getting encouraging early signs from freshman running back Derrek Cooper, whose burst and versatility gave the backfield another young option to track. Now, after an ankle injury suffered against Texas State, the Longhorns have a new concern on their hands, and it comes at a time when every healthy piece in the run game matters. Head coach Steve Sarkisian confirmed the injury and said the team will keep monitoring Coopers condition.
Cooper is expected to wear a protective boot on his right leg for the foreseeable future, a sign that this is more than a short-lived bump in the road. For a freshman who had started to build momentum as a contributor, the immediate question is how long Texas will have to manage without him and how the staff reshuffles the depth chart in the meantime. [Read more 🡒]