The first simulated BCS standings of the 2026 college football season arrived Monday, and they wasted no time putting Georgia and Notre Dame in a class of their own.
BCSKnowHow’s old-school formula, which blends human polls and computer rankings, has Georgia at No. 1 with a .9858 score and Notre Dame right behind at .9425. Those two sit alone at the top of the list, while the rest of the rankings start to bunch up in a hurry.
Georgia’s rise was powered by its road win over Alabama, a result that also pushed the Bulldogs to No. 1 in the AP Top 25. The Bulldogs collected 66 of 70 first-place votes in that poll and are now 6-0. That same victory marked Georgia’s first win in that venue since 2007 and knocked Texas off the No. 1 spot after the Longhorns lost 27-24 to Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry.
Notre Dame kept pace after a 58-7 win over Stanford. The Irish are 6-0 as well and hold the No. 2 spot in the AP poll.
Behind that top pair, the next layer of the standings comes with Miami, Indiana, and Ohio State. Miami is 5-0, Indiana is 6-0, and Ohio State is 5-1. Indiana stayed unbeaten with a tight win at Nebraska, and that result helped the Hoosiers keep climbing.
Alabama and Texas land at Nos. 6 and 7 despite their losses, a reminder of how the BCS system continued to reward quality opposition and what teams had already built up before the setbacks.
BYU, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, Utah, and UCLA make up the rest of the top 12. UCLA jumped nine spots to No. 12 in the AP poll after upsetting Oregon, and the computers gave the Bruins a similar boost.
From there, the gap opens fast. Missouri checks in at .4668, with Iowa, Tennessee, and the rest of the field trailing further back.
The whole exercise is a throwback, of course. The College Football Playoff now uses a 12-team selection committee instead of the old poll-and-computer mix. But the simulated standings still underline the same point: right now, Georgia and Notre Dame are separating themselves from everyone else.
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