College Football Rankings: Ohio State, Texas move to the top

This week before we get into the newest set of rankings, I wanted to look back and see where I was wrong — the top 5 teams I changed my mind on. Claudia Bellofatto and I talked about this on our weekly Betting Life show, and I tried to transcribe the segment as best I could below. As always, enjoy the ranks, make sure you tune in Saturdays at 10 a.m ET for our live YouTube pregame show, and if you have any questions or comments, hit me up on X at @thorku. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this one!

College Football Rankings: The five teams I changed my mind on

1. Indiana 

It's crazy what Curt Cignetti is doing there. 

I was talking about this on the phone with a friend yesterday about Tom Allen. Now the defensive coordinator at Penn State, Allen has to be looking at what Indiana's doing after he flubbed around there the last couple years, and the program just descended back into the wasteland. Allen gets fired, Curt Cignetti gets hired from James Madison and immediately turns that team around. It just didn't take a year or two. It was immediate.

Cignetti said over the offseason he reviewed the tape of Indiana in 2023; and said there wasn't enough athleticism and talent on this roster. So he blew the whole thing up. Brought in guys that started for other programs last year, several from James Madison with him, and he immediately turns the thing around. 

I was over on the Indiana win total in the preseason. The win total in Vegas was 5.5 and my projected win total on them in the preseason was 6.3. Last week on the show, I mentioned that they were getting almost 10 wins in the projections. They are now at 10 flat. 

If they get to 10 wins, which, again, is what my system is projecting, they will be in the college football playoff. People are going to have to get their head around it, because the Indiana Hoosiers are a legitimate College Football Playoff contender.

2. Army  

3. Navy

These were programs that for years and years (and years), along with Air Force, used the cut block with their traditional Flexbone triple option systems in order to mitigate a lack of talent. Then the NCAA banned cut blocks, which was said to be the death of the triple option offense. 

Air Force didn't change their system very much, and now they have fallen into the pits. Air Force is terrible. But Army and Navy both went through the trouble to try to change their offenses or meld different stuff into the option systems — going into shotgun, for instance, spreading it more and throwing more, and getting quarterbacks who could throw a little bit. And both of those offenses have made tremendous leaps this year. 

Both teams have figured out the new offenses, and they're both dangerous. I had Army with 5.9 wins against the Vegas total of 5.5 and I now project Army for 10 flat wins this year. And by the way, for folks looking into the future market, I have Army projected for the most wins in the AAC this year. 

Navy, in the preseason, their Vegas win total was 5.5. And my system —this is hand up, I was wrong on Navy — I had them at 4.3 wins. Right now, I have Navy projected at 9.4 wins. These are two examples of how really clever and shrewd coaching staffs at two programs where you have a disadvantage against all your competition in terms of recruiting — they have been able to figure it out and turn their programs around on the fly.

4. Florida State

They lost a metric ton of talent to the NFL Draft. Where we were wrong with Florida State was thinking that the guys Mike Norvell had brought in could plug and play. DJ Uiagalelei was the hand picked choice by Norvell to replace Jordan Travis — that obviously hasn't worked out. It's not the only one. They are bereft of talent at the skill positions. Their offensive line hasn't been very good, and the defense has shockingly regressed too. It's just that Uiagalelei gets all the blame for it. 

In the preseason, it was a 9.5 win total on Florida State at the books; my system was also at nine and a half on Florida State. I didn't bet it, but we were as relatively bullish as Vegas was. Right now, my system projects Florida State for 3.1 wins this regular season. They will not be bowling this year. I don't even know if they will be getting to four wins this regular season.

5. Kansas

Kansas is a weird one. Kansas returned about as much production as anyone in the nation. They had 15 returning guys, but on both sides of the ball, all their key pillars were back. Jalon Daniels at quarterback, Devin Neal at running back, all three of the receivers were back. They had a bunch of guys back on the offensive line. They have a really good secondary. Everybody returned. The preseason win total in Vegas, 8.5. My system was at 9 on Kansas. 

My system currently projects Kansas for 3.2 wins. 

This is a case where you see how valuable a coach is. Andy Kotelnicki, the offensive coordinator at Kansas, is a very, very, very clever guy, and he had been with Leipold for a couple years in advance of that. In the offseason, he got poached by James Franklin at Penn State. It's one of the reasons that Penn State's offense is looking a bit better this year. 

So Jeff Grimes was hired as offensive coordinator; he's the former coordinator at Baylor. He had been at BYU prior to that, as well. The Jeff Grimes offense is devoid of any creativity. I put out last week on Twitter that I would not watch. And I've watched all the Kansas football games going back to when I was an undergrad. I am not watching Kansas football anymore this season until Jeff Grimes is fired. It's the same story over and over again. It goes back to coaching. This Kansas team is dead on arrival because of poor coaching.

The CFB Power Rankings

You can see all 134 teams ranked on Thor's CFB Power Rankings page. Here are the Top 25