College football rankings: Ohio State, LSU rise as Texas, Alabama tumble in CBS Sports 136

Week 1 fireworks brought inevitable changes to the college football rankings, and CBS Sports voters agreed that the new No. 1 is the team that just beat No. 1: Ohio State.

The Buckeyes defended home turf and shut down Arch Manning in convincing fashion, moving up from No. 3 in the latest CBS Sports 136, our ranking of every FBS team. LSU also made a strong impression, leaping from No. 9 to No. 2. Both jumped ahead of Penn State, which slipped from No. 2 to No. 3 despite a 46-11 win over Nevada.

The top 10 also saw shakeups for Texas (down six spots), Clemson (down five) and Notre Dame (down two) after losses to fellow top-10 teams. Miami, meanwhile, surged into the top five after Sunday night’s win against the Irish.

Further down, Florida State, Utah and Auburn climbed with statement victories, while Alabama suffered one of the biggest drops of the week. The Crimson Tide fell all the way to No. 26 after losing in Tallahassee.

Highlights from those adjustments — and more from across the CBS Sports 136 — can be found in the Mover’s Report section below the top 25 table.

College football experts from CBS Sports and 247Sports contribute ballots each week, which are averaged together for our rankings. You can see the top 25 below and 26-136 on our rankings page.

Biggest movers

No. 33 USF (+48): The very first game of the Week 1 schedule allowed all of college football to peer in on the post-Ashton Jeanty era at Boise State, but instead everyone walked away with a new optimism for what USF could accomplish in 2025. With Byrum Brown healthy and the defense putting the clamps on the Broncos in a lopsided win, the Bulls look like contenders in the American.
No. 13 Florida State (+28): Florida State’s win against Alabama has consequences for both teams in the rankings. Because while the Crimson Tide disappointed yet again as a double-digit favorite, there is also a large amount of credit coming for the offseason work Mike Norvell and the Seminoles put in. Time will tell if this is a top-10 team, but our voters clearly see it as a real threat in the ACC and a team to watch in the College Football Playoff race.
No. 32 Tulane (+13): Offense was taken by Jon Sumrall and Tulane when their jersey request was not granted. While semantics can be debated, you can’t dispute that Green Wave brought an edge to their win against Northwestern. Jake Retzlaff appears to have settled in as the team’s new QB1, and Tulane deserves a spot in the top 40 as they eye a run at a conference title and potential CFP spot.
No. 47 Boise State (-13): It seems likely that Boise State will play better than it did on a late Thursday afternoon in Tampa in Week 1. But there are alarm bells going off for those who believed this team would waltz through the Mountain West. Week 1 results can sometimes look strange in retrospect, and Spencer Danielson is hoping this one will too. But our voters needed a big pivot from their preseason priors after the loss at USF.
No. 41 Baylor (-15): Baylor’s inability to get stops against Auburn’s ground game really put a damper on the Bears’ potential for a thunderous start to the season. With SMU coming up next, they need to clean things up quickly, or face a drop outside of the top 50.
No. 26 Alabama (-18): When 247Sports declared Alabama’s roster as the most in the country, it justified the preseason hype for a bounce back year. But after a season-opening loss that looked more like the head-scratching defeats to Oklahoma and Michigan last season, there was a quick and ruthless adjustment for a group that not only fell out of the top 10, but the top 25.
No. 39 Kansas State (-25): A sloppy showing in Dublin could be excused, but struggling to put away FCS North Dakota puts Kansas State in the “fire sale” spot for our voters. On paper, there are enough weapons to contend with anyone in the Big 12, but the execution issues to start the year have really challenged the idea the Wildcats deserve that kind of ranking among their peers.