Josh’s College Football Rankings 2024–End of Season Edition!

Congratulations to Ohio State for winning the National Championship! The Buckeyes looked great during the playoffs, and left no doubt that they are the champions this year. The bowl games were actually exciting this year, not just the playoffs. It felt like there were less opt-outs (did NIL money have something to do with it?), or if there were opt-outs, teams were prepared. Maybe I am completely wrong, but I felt like there were a bunch of great games. 

Anyway, this is the final ranking of the year. I took the playoffs and bowl games into consideration. These will be a good starting point for the first rankings of next season, which I will be tweaking a bit. I want to make it a little more quantifiable. Or something, who knows. 

1. Ohio State (14-2)–#7–W 42-17 #6 Tennessee, W 41-21 #1 Oregon, W 28-14 #4 Texas, W 34-23 #5 Notre Dame. The Buckeyes won the first 4-team playoff championship, and now the first 12-team. Impressive.
2. Notre Dame (14-2)–#5–W 27-17 #11 Indiana, W 23-10 #3 Georgia, W 27-24 #2 Penn State, L 34-23 #7 Ohio State. The expansion of the playoffs benefitted the Irish more than probably anyone. They would not have made the top four with that terrible loss to NIU (maybe…that is a debate for another time). They proved they deserved to be there.
3. Penn State (13-3)–#2–W 38-10 #10 SMU, W 31-14 #9 Boise State, L 27-24 #5 Notre Dame
4. Texas (13-3)–#4–W 38-24 #14 Clemson, W 39-31 2OT #8 Arizona State, L 28-14 #7 Ohio State
5. Oregon (13-1)–#1–L 41-21 #7 Ohio State
6. Georgia (11-3)–#3–L 23-10 #5 Notre Dame
7. Arizona State (11-3)–#8–L 39-31 2OT #4 Texas
8. Tennessee (10-3)–#6–L 42-17 #7 Ohio State
9. Ole Miss (10-3)–#12–W 52-20 #24 Duke. The Rebels had something to prove, and they came out looking to destroy the Blue Devils.
10. Indiana (11-2)–#11–L 27-17 #5 Notre Dame. People gave the Hoosiers crap acting like they did not belong in the playoffs, but you know what? They were in the game against Notre Dame, a few bad decisions and the game could have been closer.
11. Illinois (10-3)–#17–W 21-17 #13 South Carolina. I feel like I was higher on Illinois than most people all year. They beat South Carolina, and proved they were a legit team this year.
12. BYU (11-2)–#18–W 36-14 #20 Colorado. By some weird quirk of bowl game stuff, BYU got to play against fellow Big XII member, Colorado. I thought the game would be close, but the Cougars silenced the Coach Prime fans, who thought the Buffs would dominate this game.
13. Iowa State (11-3)–#22–W 42-41 #15 Miami
14. Boise State (12-2)–#9–L 31-14 #2 Penn State
15. South Carolina (9-4)–#13–L 21-17 #17 Illinois
16. Clemson (10-4)–#14–L 38-24 #4 Texas
17. SMU (11-3)–#10–L 38-10 #2 Penn state. I think we need to be honest about how good the ACC is compared to the other three conferences (or maybe we should just say the SEC and Big Ten are significantly above the ACC and Big XII).
18. Alabama (9-4)–#16–L 19-13 Michigan. I never had them as a bubble team, and for good reason. They can be great at times, but as they have proven throughout the year, they just cannot put it all together at once.
19. Syracuse (10-3)–#25–W 52-35 Washington State. Another team that was borderline ranked all year, but I think we slept on them at times. Kyle McCord had a monster year, and they had some solid wins, but also some head scratching losses.
20. Miami (10-3)–#15–L 42-41 #22 Iowa State. Embarrassing that Cam Ward would not suit up in the 4th quarter to help his teammates win that game. I hope NFL scouts really grill him about that decision during interviews at the draft.
21. Memphis (11-2)–HM–W 42-37 West Virginia
22. Missouri (10-3)–#23–W 27-24 Iowa
23. Louisville (9-4)–HM–W 35-34 Washington
24. UNLV (11-3)–HM–W 24-13 California
25. Michigan (8-5)–HM–W 19-13 #16 Alabama. A huge jump, and the only five loss team in my Top 25. But, if we are looking at a team that has started to figure things out, and could probably win some of those earlier games if they played like this, then it is easy to see the Wolverines deserve to be ranked. They beat the National Champs, and they beat Alabama without one of their best players on defense.

Honorable Mentions

• Army (12-2)–#19–L 31-13 Navy, W 27-6 Louisiana Tech
• Colorado (9-4)–#20–L 36-14 #18 BYU
• Texas A&M (8-5)–#21–L 35-31 USC
• Duke (9-4)–#24–L 52-20 #12 Ole Miss
• Kansas State (9-4)–HM–W 44-41 Rutgers
• Florida (8-5)–NR–W 33-8 Tulane
• LSU (9-4)–HM–W 44-31 Baylor
• UConn (9-4)–NR–W 27-14 UNC
• Minnesota (8-5)–NR–W 24-10 Virginia Tech
• Navy (10-3)–NR–W 31-13 #19 Army, W 21-20 Oklahoma

I enjoy looking back at the rankings to see how much changed over the year. My preseason rankings had six of the final top ten teams. Going further out, 14 of the top 25, and if we expand out to the honorable mentions, then I had 17 of 35 teams ranked in the preseason who finished in my rankings. I had SMU as a preseason HM, go me! There were 77 different teams that made it into the rankings at some point during the season.