Texas Longhorns Rank No. 1 on ESPN's 2025 College Football Power Index

Once again, the Texas Longhorns are ranked No.1 ahead of their season opener against the Ohio State Buckeyes on Aug. 30.

Ranked No.1 by AP Preseason Polls, as well as ESPN’s College Football Final Preseason SP+ ranking, let’s dive into how the Texas Longhorns landed at No.1 on ESPN’s College Football Power Index (FPI).

What is the FPI?

Texas Longhorns football on Dec. 21, 2024, at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Developed in 2013, the College Football Power Index (FPI) is a predictive rating system that calculates teams’ strengths and projects their performance throughout the season.

The system is released prior to the season’s start, and can be utilized as a good jumping off point to assess where teams stand. As the season persists, the FPI adjusts to anticipate results and reflect performances by taking into account various factors.

However, evaluating teams’ records is not one of them, due to the fact that some teams have more difficult schedules, their records might not indicate how strong of a team they truly are.

Regarding influencing factors, “each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predictive offensive, defensive, and special teams components… in the preseason, these components are made up entirely of data from previous seasons, such as returning starters, past performance, recruiting rankings, and coaching tenure,” according to ESPN.

Further, it’s not a playoff indicator but merely identifies the teams most anticipated to make the College Football Playoffs.

All of these elements allow the FPI to make predictions heading into week 1. Regarding its accuracy, over the last 10 years, the FPI favorite has won 75 percent of the Football Bowl Subdivision games, and has increased to 77 percent the last four seasons.

Texas Longhorns on top

Texas Longhorns mascot on Dec. 21, 2024, at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. | Sara Diggins-USA Today Network via Imagn Images

As Texas ranks No. 1, they prove to excel in the major factors that are calculated in the FPI prediction ranking — returning starters, past performance, recruiting rankings and coaching tenure.

With the regular season just around the corner, the Longhorns are projected to have a win-to-loss record of 10.4-2.2, and an FPI of 24.5, a number “that measures the team’s true strength on net points scale.”

Further, the SEC’s domination proves true on the FPI listing as the top three teams come from the SEC, with (No. 1) Texas, (No. 2) Georgia and (No. 3) Alabama.

Additionally, nine other SEC teams rank within the top 25 — (No. 8) Tennessee, (No. 9) Texas A&M, (No. 10) Ole Miss, (No. 11) South Carolina, (No. 12) LSU, (No. 13) Florida, (No. 20) Oklahoma, (No. 21) Auburn and (No. 23) Missouri.

As of now, the Longhorns post a 37.5 percent chance of winning their conference championship game, with an 86.7 percent chance of making it to the CFP. The rankings also indicate that Texas has a 38.5 percent chance of heading to the CFP National Championship game, with a 25 percent chance of winning it all.

Overall, it’d be a good idea to keep an eye on the Longhorns’ probability through ESPN’s FPI rankings as the season soon begins rolling.