Quick Hits
- AP Poll tells us where the national media consensus stands.
- Coaches Poll gives another human perspective from inside the sport.
- 135 Sports Top 30 asks what the accumulated evidence currently implies about team strength.
Four weeks into the season, the differences between the three rankings are becoming more informative. Texas remains the consensus number one in both human polls but is fourth in the 135 Sports Top 30. Notre Dame remains first here while sitting third in both human polls. Oregon has climbed back to seventh in the 135 ranking after winning at USC but remains fifteenth with both voter groups. Florida produced one of the strongest results of Week 4 and surged to eighth in both human polls, while the 135 board moved the Gators five places to seventeenth. Texas A&M remains ninth here despite falling completely out of both Top 25 polls after a second consecutive loss. Iowa presents perhaps the largest disagreement in the other direction, sitting fourteenth in both human polls while remaining thirtieth on the 135 board.
The season will resolve many of these differences itself with each new game supplying more evidence. Teams that are stronger than their current public perception will have opportunities to prove it, while teams still benefiting from an overly optimistic early assessment will eventually have to defend that position against stronger opposition. And that is what makes the comparison useful.
College football already has several competing ways to describe the same season, and those systems can reach very different conclusions from the same Saturday. The AP Poll reflects a national media consensus, the Coaches Poll reflects a panel drawn from current FBS head coaches, and the 135 Sports Top 30 is built as a predictive team strength ranking. Looking at all three together is useful because the disagreements often reveal more than the places where everyone reaches roughly the same conclusion.
Week 4 gave each system another substantial collection of evidence to process. Florida beat Ole Miss 52 to 28 in one of the weekend's most consequential results. Oregon went on the road and defeated USC 41 to 27. Georgia handled Oklahoma 41 to 13. LSU beat Texas A&M 35 to 6. Iowa won at Michigan 20 to 19 on the final play. Mississippi State beat Missouri, while Penn State lost at home to Wisconsin and Louisville lost to Wake Forest.
Those games created substantial movement across the national picture. Texas remains first in both major human polls. Florida made one of the largest jumps of the season after beating Ole Miss. Oregon climbed in both human polls after winning at USC. Mississippi State moved sharply upward after beating Missouri. Penn State, Michigan, Louisville and Texas A&M all fell out of the AP Top 25. The 135 Sports board reacted to the same games, but not always in the same direction or to the same degree, and that difference is the point.
The AP Poll and Coaches Poll combine human judgments about what teams have accomplished and where they belong nationally. The 135 Sports Top 30 is trying to estimate present predictive team strength. Those are related questions, but they are not identical questions, and four weeks of football are making the differences increasingly visible.
Unlike earlier in the season, this release does not introduce a new 135 Sports methodology. The board remains governed by 2026 v0.12. The question this week is therefore not how the model changed. It is what another week of football changed about the teams.
AP Poll Heading Into Week 5
The AP Poll remains the most familiar national ranking in college football. Its voting panel is composed of sportswriters and broadcasters from across the country, with each voter submitting a Top 25 ballot and the combined point totals producing the weekly national ranking. The result is an organized media consensus that can incorporate record, opponent quality, head to head outcomes, game performance, prior expectations and whatever other football evidence each voter believes should matter.
Texas remains first in the latest AP Poll, followed by Georgia and Notre Dame. Miami rises to fourth, Ohio State moves to fifth and Indiana is sixth. Alabama rises to seventh, while Florida makes the largest move near the top of the ranking, climbing thirteen positions from twenty first to eighth after beating Ole Miss 52 to 28. Ole Miss falls to ninth and BYU rounds out the Top 10.
LSU is eleventh, Texas Tech twelfth and Utah thirteenth. Iowa climbs to fourteenth after winning at Michigan, while Oregon moves five positions to fifteenth following its road victory over USC. Mississippi State rises eight places to sixteenth after beating Missouri, Tennessee is seventeenth and USC falls to eighteenth. Oklahoma State enters at nineteenth and Houston moves to twentieth.
SMU is twenty first, Boise State enters at twenty second, UCLA enters at twenty third, Kentucky enters at twenty fourth and Missouri falls to twenty fifth. Penn State, Michigan, Louisville and Texas A&M all leave the ranking.
The complete AP Top 25 is Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami, Ohio State, Indiana, Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss, BYU, LSU, Texas Tech, Utah, Iowa, Oregon, Mississippi State, Tennessee, USC, Oklahoma State, Houston, SMU, Boise State, UCLA, Kentucky and Missouri.
Florida provides the clearest example of how quickly a human poll can react when a major result changes the national interpretation of a team. The Gators entered Week 4 at twenty first and emerged at number eight after beating then No. 4 Ole Miss by 24 points. That thirteen position rise was the largest AP jump since LSU moved fourteen positions in September 2018.
That flexibility is one of the defining features of a consensus poll. A voter does not need to ask only how much one performance should alter an estimate of future team strength. The voter can also consider what the result means for the team's record, season trajectory, quality of accomplishments and standing relative to every other team on the ballot. Florida's rise, Penn State's disappearance after losing to Wisconsin and Iowa's climb after winning at Michigan all demonstrate how quickly the national consensus can change when a Saturday materially alters the evidence.
Coaches Poll Heading Into Week 5
The Coaches Poll reaches its ranking through another human voting process, but the voting constituency comes from inside the sport rather than the media covering it. The poll uses a panel of FBS head coaches, with individual Top 25 ballots combined into a national ranking.
That creates another respected national reference point, but one that does not have to interpret the same evidence exactly the way the AP electorate does.
Texas is also first in the current Coaches Poll, followed by Georgia, Notre Dame and Miami. Indiana is fifth, Ohio State sixth, Alabama seventh and Florida eighth. BYU is ninth and Texas Tech is tenth.
LSU is eleventh, Ole Miss twelfth and Utah thirteenth. Iowa moves to fourteenth, Oregon is fifteenth, Mississippi State rises to sixteenth and Tennessee is seventeenth. USC is eighteenth, SMU nineteenth and Houston twentieth.
Duke enters the ranking at twenty first, Penn State falls to twenty second, UCLA is twenty third, Michigan is twenty fourth and Missouri is twenty fifth. The complete Coaches Poll is Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami, Indiana, Ohio State, Alabama, Florida, BYU, Texas Tech, LSU, Ole Miss, Utah, Iowa, Oregon, Mississippi State, Tennessee, USC, SMU, Houston, Duke, Penn State, UCLA, Michigan and Missouri.
The differences between the two human polls remain meaningful even when their upper portions look similar. Ohio State is fifth in the AP Poll and sixth with the coaches, while Indiana occupies those positions in reverse. Ole Miss is ninth in the AP Poll but twelfth with the coaches. SMU is twenty first in the AP Poll and nineteenth with the coaches. Penn State and Michigan remain inside the Coaches Top 25 after losses to Wisconsin and Iowa respectively, while both disappear from the AP ranking.
Those disagreements are useful because they show that even two systems built around human ballots can interpret the same evidence differently. Neither poll is mechanically obligated to produce a particular response to one game. Each is a collective judgment about where teams belong after the football that has been played. And the 135 Sports board approaches the same evidence from a different direction.
135 Sports College Football Top 30, 2026 v0.12
The 135 Sports Top 30 is designed to answer a narrower question than either national poll. The governing object is predictive team strength rather than voter consensus or resume quality.
Each team carries an accumulated assessment that is updated as governed game evidence enters the season. A result can meaningfully strengthen or weaken that assessment, but one Saturday does not automatically erase everything that came before it. Likewise, simply remaining undefeated does not guarantee upward movement if the performance itself supplies weaker information than the model expected.
That distinction is especially visible this week. Notre Dame remains first in the 135 Sports ranking after improving to 4 and 0 and sits third in both major human polls. Georgia moves to second here and is second in both human polls. Ohio State falls one position to third on the 135 board after improving to 3 and 1 and sits fifth in the AP Poll and sixth with the coaches. Texas rises one position to fourth while remaining number one in both human polls.
Oregon provides one of the more interesting disagreements. The Ducks move from eighth to seventh after winning at USC, while both human polls place them fifteenth. Texas A&M provides an even larger divergence. The Aggies fall two positions to ninth after losing 35 to 6 at LSU and moving to 2 and 2, but remain inside the 135 Top 10 even after disappearing from both human Top 25s. The loss matters substantially. The broader accumulated strength assessment is simply not replaced by one result.
Florida produces the opposite comparison. The Gators delivered one of the strongest results of Week 4 and rise five places from twenty second to seventeenth on the 135 board. Human voters responded much more dramatically, moving Florida to eighth in both polls. Iowa creates another major difference. The Hawkeyes are undefeated after winning at Michigan and sit fourteenth in both human polls, but remain thirtieth in the 135 Sports ranking.
None of those differences means one ranking is required to be right and another wrong. They reflect different governing questions. The public 135 board intentionally shows the ordered Top 30, movement, record, AP and Coaches comparisons and qualitative Why and Basis explanations without exposing protected model states or pretending that adjacent ordinal positions represent rigid competitive tiers.
A team can strengthen its underlying profile without moving upward. Another can win and still move down because other teams produced stronger information. A loss can materially damage a team without completely replacing the broader evidence that had already accumulated. Those distinctions become more useful as the season moves farther away from its opening assumptions and actual football occupies more of the evidence set.
135 Sports College Football Top 30: Team by Team Explanation
The explanations below describe the public reasoning behind each placement without reproducing the protected mechanics that generate the board. They focus on the direction and quality of the evidence, the context surrounding each result and why a team moved or remained where it did.
Movement is measured against the published Post Week 3 board. The ranking should be read as a current ordered view rather than a collection of rigid competitive tiers. Nearby teams can be separated by very little, and ordinal movement is partly relative to what happened elsewhere on the board.
1. Notre Dame, unchanged
Notre Dame remains first after improving to 4 and 0 with a Week 4 road victory at Purdue. The result reinforced an overall profile that was already the strongest on the current 135 Sports board and supplied no reason to move the Irish away from the top position. The AP and Coaches polls both place Notre Dame third, but the 135 Sports assessment continues to see the Irish as the strongest predictive team in the current field.
2. Georgia, up one
Georgia rises from third to second after beating Oklahoma and improving to 4 and 0. The Bulldogs controlled a significant Week 4 matchup and added another strong result to an already elite profile. Georgia is second in both major human polls and now second here as well, making the Bulldogs one of the clearest areas of agreement across all three systems.
3. Ohio State, down one
Ohio State falls from second to third despite beating Illinois and improving to 3 and 1. The Buckeyes continue carrying an elite overall strength profile, and the earlier loss at Texas remains part of that accumulated assessment. This week's move should not be interpreted as the Illinois victory weakening Ohio State. Georgia's movement and the complete reordering of the board were enough to move the Buckeyes down one position. Ohio State is fifth in the AP Poll and sixth with the coaches.
4. Texas, up one
Texas moves from fifth to fourth after winning on the road at Tennessee and improving to 4 and 0. The Longhorns remain first in both major human polls, but the 135 Sports ranking continues to treat their predictive strength separately from the resume and consensus value associated with remaining undefeated. Texas strengthened its case again this week, and the board responded with another one position rise.
5. Indiana, down one
Indiana falls from fourth to fifth despite beating Northwestern and improving to 4 and 0. The Hoosiers continue producing positive results and remain firmly inside the upper portion of the ranking. The movement is relative rather than an indication that the team's underlying profile deteriorated simply because it won. Indiana is sixth in the AP Poll and fifth with the coaches, leaving all three systems in a similar national neighborhood.
6. Miami, unchanged
Miami remains sixth after beating Central Michigan and improving to 4 and 0. The Hurricanes continue accumulating positive evidence around a strong early season profile, but Week 4 did not create enough separation to change their position on the 135 board. Human voters remain slightly more favorable, placing Miami fourth in both major polls.
7. Oregon, up one
Oregon rises from eighth to seventh after winning 41 to 27 at USC and improving to 3 and 1. The road victory supplied meaningful positive evidence against a ranked opponent and continued the Ducks' recovery from the earlier loss at Oklahoma State. Human voters also responded positively, moving Oregon to fifteenth in both polls, but the 135 Sports assessment remains considerably more favorable to the Ducks' present predictive strength.
8. BYU, up one
BYU rises from ninth to eighth despite being idle in Week 4. The Cougars remain 3 and 0, and no new game evidence entered their own assessment this week. The movement is therefore relative. Changes elsewhere on the board were enough to move BYU one position higher while its underlying profile remained intact. BYU is tenth in the AP Poll and ninth with the coaches.
9. Texas A&M, down two
Texas A&M falls from seventh to ninth after losing 35 to 6 at LSU and moving to 2 and 2. The performance was another major negative result and produced a second consecutive downward correction in the Aggies' current assessment. The important distinction remains that the 135 Sports ranking does not automatically replace the entire accumulated profile with the most recent result. A&M has now fallen four positions over two weeks, but the broader predictive assessment still leaves the Aggies ninth even after both human polls removed them from the Top 25 entirely.
10. Alabama, up two
Alabama rises from twelfth to tenth after beating South Carolina and improving to 4 and 0. The Crimson Tide continue producing evidence that strengthens the current assessment, and Week 4 was enough to move them two positions higher as the surrounding board changed. Alabama is seventh in both major human polls, so the voter consensus remains somewhat more favorable than the 135 ranking.
11. Texas Tech, down one
Texas Tech moves from tenth to eleventh despite beating Sam Houston and improving to 4 and 0. The Red Raiders remain undefeated and continue carrying a strong overall profile, but ordinal ranking is relative to what every team around them produced. Movement elsewhere was enough to push Texas Tech down one position without implying that the Week 4 victory itself was negative. Texas Tech is twelfth in the AP Poll and tenth with the coaches.
12. Tennessee, up one
Tennessee rises from thirteenth to twelfth despite losing 20 to 17 to Texas and moving to 3 and 1. This is another example of why the 135 ranking is not simply an ordered list of records. A narrow loss to a strong opponent can carry different predictive information from a larger loss or a loss against a weaker opponent, and movement elsewhere on the board also affects ordinal position. Texas' No. 1 position in both human polls is comparison context only. Tennessee is seventeenth in both human polls.
13. Ole Miss, down two
Ole Miss falls from eleventh to thirteenth after losing 52 to 28 at Florida and moving to 3 and 1. The defeat was one of the most consequential negative results of Week 4 and materially weakened the Rebels' current profile. Human voters also responded sharply, moving Ole Miss from fourth to ninth in the AP Poll, while the Coaches Poll places the Rebels twelfth. The direction is consistent across all three systems even though the magnitude differs.
14. LSU, up one
LSU rises from fifteenth to fourteenth after beating Texas A&M 35 to 6 and improving to 3 and 1. The Tigers responded to the previous week's loss at Ole Miss with a convincing victory against an opponent that entered the season with a strong profile. That supplied meaningful positive Week 4 evidence and moved LSU one position higher. The AP and Coaches polls both remain more favorable, placing LSU eleventh.
15. Utah, up one
Utah rises from sixteenth to fifteenth after winning at Iowa State and improving to 4 and 0. The Utes continue accumulating positive evidence around a strong early season profile, and the road victory was enough to support another incremental rise. Utah is thirteenth in both major human polls, producing relatively close agreement across the three systems.
16. USC, down two
USC falls from fourteenth to sixteenth after losing at home to Oregon and moving to 4 and 1. The defeat supplied meaningful negative evidence after the Trojans had already fallen three positions the previous week. USC remains eighteenth in both major human polls, so the three rankings now place the Trojans in a relatively narrow range even though they arrived there through different processes.
17. Florida, up five
Florida makes the largest positive move on this week's 135 board, rising from twenty second to seventeenth after beating Ole Miss 52 to 28 and improving to 4 and 0. The performance supplied substantial positive information against a highly regarded opponent and materially strengthened Florida's predictive case. Human voters reacted even more dramatically, moving the Gators thirteen positions to eighth in the AP Poll, with the Coaches Poll also placing Florida eighth. The direction is unanimous. The remaining disagreement concerns how far one major result should move the team.
18. Oklahoma, down one
Oklahoma falls from seventeenth to eighteenth after losing 41 to 13 at Georgia and moving to 2 and 2. The result was clearly negative and continued a difficult stretch for the Sooners. Oklahoma has scored only 37 combined points across its last three games, and is now outside both major human Top 25s. The 135 assessment remains more favorable to Oklahoma's broader predictive profile, but that advantage has continued to narrow.
19. Michigan, unchanged
Michigan remains nineteenth after losing 20 to 19 at home to Iowa and falling to 3 and 1. The loss was negative, but the narrow margin and complete accumulated profile were not enough to move Michigan from its existing ordinal position once the full board was reordered. The AP Poll drops Michigan out of the Top 25, while the Coaches Poll places the Wolverines twenty fourth.
20. Virginia Tech, unchanged
Virginia Tech remains twentieth after winning at Boston College and improving to 4 and 0. The Hokies followed the previous week's five position rise with another road victory, reinforcing the case that moved them sharply upward after Week 3. The result supported the current placement without creating enough separation for another ordinal move. Virginia Tech remains outside both major human Top 25s, preserving one of the clearest disagreements between the 135 Sports ranking and national voter consensus.
21. Penn State, down three
Penn State falls from eighteenth to twenty first after losing 24 to 20 at home to Wisconsin and moving to 3 and 1. The Nittany Lions carried a fourth quarter lead before the game turned, and the result supplied significant negative information against the previous assessment. The AP Poll removed Penn State from its Top 25 entirely, while the Coaches Poll retains the Nittany Lions at twenty second. The 135 board remains slightly more favorable than the Coaches Poll and considerably more favorable than the AP response, placing Penn State twenty first.
22. Kansas State, down one
Kansas State falls from twenty first to twenty second after losing at Cincinnati and moving to 3 and 1. The defeat weakened the Wildcats' current profile and produced a one position correction once the full board was reordered. Kansas State remains outside both major human polls, while the 135 Sports assessment continues to keep the Wildcats inside the Top 30.
23. Arizona, up one
Arizona rises from twenty fourth to twenty third after winning at Washington State and improving to 3 and 1. The road victory supplied positive Week 4 evidence and continued stabilizing a profile that had already absorbed an earlier loss. The move is modest because the teams in this portion of the board remain closely grouped. Arizona remains unranked in both major human polls.
24. Missouri, down one
Missouri falls from twenty third to twenty fourth after losing 31 to 24 at Mississippi State and moving to 3 and 1. The result was negative and weakened the Tigers' current profile, while Mississippi State's performance was strong enough to drive a major rise in both human polls. Missouri remains inside both Top 25s at number twenty five, leaving all three systems relatively close on the Tigers despite the loss.
25. Vanderbilt, unchanged
Vanderbilt remains twenty fifth after losing at Auburn and falling to 3 and 1. The defeat was negative and weakened the Commodores' current assessment, but after every team was updated the complete ordering still left Vanderbilt in the same ordinal position. Remaining twenty fifth should therefore not be read as the loss having no effect. It means Vanderbilt still occupied the same place once the entire board was reordered. The Commodores remain outside both major Top 25 polls.
26. Houston, up three
Houston rises from twenty ninth to twenty sixth after winning at Georgia Southern and improving to 3 and 1. The road victory supplied enough positive evidence to reverse some of the downward movement created by the previous week's narrow loss at Texas Tech. Human voters remain considerably more favorable, with Houston twentieth in both the AP and Coaches polls.
27. Nebraska, new to the Top 30
Nebraska enters the public 135 Sports Top 30 at number twenty seven after winning at Michigan State and improving to 4 and 0. Because Nebraska was not part of the published Post Week 3 Top 30, the Cornhuskers correctly carry a new entrant designation rather than an unchanged marker or fabricated previous ranking. The undefeated start has now supplied enough accumulated evidence for Nebraska to cross the public Top 30 boundary, while the Cornhuskers remain outside both major human Top 25s.
28. Louisville, unchanged
Louisville remains twenty eighth after losing 30 to 27 to Wake Forest and falling to 2 and 2. The defeat was negative and weakened the Cardinals' current case immediately after their entry into the public 135 Top 30 the previous week. The AP and Coaches polls both removed Louisville from their Top 25s, producing considerably more agreement across the three systems than existed one week earlier.
29. South Carolina, down three
South Carolina falls from twenty sixth to twenty ninth after losing at Alabama and moving to 2 and 2. The road defeat supplied another negative result and pushed the Gamecocks close to the public Top 30 boundary. South Carolina remains unranked in both national polls, so all three systems now place the Gamecocks outside the national Top 25.
30. Iowa, unchanged
Iowa remains thirtieth despite winning 20 to 19 at Michigan and improving to 4 and 0. The road victory was unquestionably positive evidence and strengthened the Hawkeyes' underlying profile, but ordinal movement is relative to the complete board. After every Week 4 result was incorporated, Iowa remained directly on the public cutoff. That creates perhaps the largest current disagreement with the national polls. Iowa rose to fourteenth in both the AP and Coaches rankings while remaining number thirty in the 135 Sports assessment. The disagreement is especially useful because the systems are responding to the same meaningful road victory but placing very different weight on Iowa's complete accumulated strength profile.
Disclosure
Disclosure: The 135 Sports College Football Top 30 is an independent editorial and analytical ranking produced by 135 Sports. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by or produced in partnership with the NCAA, the College Football Playoff, the Associated Press, the US LBM Coaches Poll, any conference, university, athletic department, sportsbook or other organization referenced in this article. Team names, logos and other trademarks belong to their respective owners and are referenced for identification and editorial commentary. Scores, schedules, poll positions and other public football information are drawn from publicly available sources and are believed accurate as of publication. The rankings represent 135 Sports’ assessment of present team strength and may change as new information becomes available. They are not intended as gambling, financial or investment advice. For the live rankings and future updates, visit 135sports.com or go directly to 135sports.com/college-football-rankings.
Explore 135 Sports: Weekly Rankings · CFB Top 30