Heather Dinich’s Early College Football Rankings Cause Big Debate

The 2025 college football season ended with the Indiana Hoosiers hoisting the national championship trophy after they pulled off a flawless 16-0 season.

While the victory is still fresh in the minds of Hoosier fans, those around college football are already taking a whack at predicting who will be contenders next season. Something that ESPN's college football insider Heather Dinich did on Tuesday, as she took to Instagram with an early top 25 prediction.

Despite being the champs this season, Dinich has the Hoosiers slated to open next year as the No. 3 team in the country. The two programs ahead of them in the eyes of Dinich were the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at No. 2 and the Texas Longhorns sitting atop the rankings for what would be the second year in a row.

"The yellow notebook is back … and it’s #waytooearly … have at it, people 😏," captioned Dinich.

The entirety of the rankings can be seen below:

As expected, because college football fans rarely agree with one another, the comment section was flooded with fans around the country who disagreed with her rankings.

"Waaay too early .... but I love it! Where's Illinois," asked one fan.

"ND 2??," questioned a second.

"Death, taxes, and Texas being massively overhyped in the offseason," pointed out another.

"Texas at 1 .... again?," wrote one fan.

"Canes are a lil too low for a championship runner-up," suggested another.

"Heather I like your logical predictions through the season, but this ranking is far away from the real," said one user.

"You have Miami way too low," commented another.

"I can't believe Tennessee didn't even make the top 25," said one fan.

"I would vote Ole Miss higher with Chambliss and Lacy back," suggested another.

"FSU must be at 26," quipped one fan.

A view of a tv camera and the ESPN college football logo. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

In reality, the initial AP rankings won't come out for another couple of months, but things such as spring ball position battles, injuries and unknown stars will surely impact the rankings for the 2026 season, as they do every year.

With that being said, it's hard to imagine Dinich being too far off of the right track, as most around the sport seem to already be gravitating toward teams that she has ranked within the top 10.

If the Longhorns do open the year as the top team, they'd likely love to hold onto that ranking longer than one week, as they lost their first game of the year in 2025. There is still plenty of time before these rankings will become more of a reality, but clearly fans are already in midseason form.