Nation's No. 1 Team Plummets in Updated Week 1 College Football Rankings

Even before anybody played a snap, David Pollack did a rewrite of the AP college football rankings that saw the No. 1 team take a dive ahead of the 2026 season opener.

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Nobody has really played anyone yet, but the No. 1 team in the college football rankings heading into Week 1 has already taken a dive, at least according to veteran analyst David Pollack and his re-ranking of the best teams in the country right now.

Pollack swapped one Big Ten contender for another when he rearranged the AP top 25 poll just days away from the kick off of the 2026 season. Who landed where?

Buckeyes tumble down the rankings

While the coaches, AP voters, and the ESPN algorithm all consider Ohio State the best team in college football, Pollack took another view, dropping the national title hopefuls down six spots to No. 7, by far the biggest decrease of any other team in his new poll.

Why the drop?

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Not that the Buckeyes aren’t good, Pollack noted, but the schedule they face this time around could test even the mettle of this blue-chip roster, facing an expected six AP ranked opponents, four of those on the road: Texas, Iowa, Indiana, and USC.

Then they get No. 2 Oregon and No. 16 Michigan in the Horseshoe to wrap up what will be a decisive November run, a crucible that will tell us definitively whether a new-look Buckeye defense that loses eight starting tacklers can do the job or not.

Who’s the new No. 1 team?

Pollack is still looking to the Big Ten to search out college football’s best, but now it’s the team that will go to Columbus in November looking to prove it.

Oregon earned the No. 1 position in Pollack’s reassessment of the AP poll. And this just might be the year when it breaks through and wins its first championship.

Oregon can go all the way

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That’s been a theme of this offseason, with analysts noting that Oregon seems to be the next logical contender out of the Big Ten on the conference’s three year national championship run, after Michigan, Ohio State, and Indiana went all the way.

“I think the Ducks are going to win a national title, so I have them in that first spot,” Pollack said of Dan Lanning’s program.

There’s a good argument. Dante Moore returned as Oregon’s elite starting quarterback after spurning the NFL Draft in the spring, and he’s flanked by an elite backfield, some very capable blockers, and what might be the best overall receiver room in America.

Pollack wasn’t alone in considering the Ducks the actual No. 1 team this preseason: six voters in the Coaches Poll and another 14 of the AP ballots agreed.

David Pollack’s college football rankings

1. Oregon
2. Notre Dame
3. Miami
4. Georgia
5. Indiana
6. Texas
7. Ohio State
8. Ole Miss
9. Oklahoma
10. Texas Tech
11. Texas A&M
12. Alabama
13. USC
14. BYU
15. LSU
16. Michigan
17. Washington
18. Penn State
19. SMU
20. Tennessee
21. Utah
22. Iowa
23. Houston
24. Louisville
25. Missouri

(Pollack)