The Ohio State Buckeyes blasted the trash out of the Oregon Ducks, 42-20, in the first-ever College Football Playoff final on Monday night. The final polls have dutifully put OSU at No. 1, as they should, and the computers have mostly fallen in line as well.
Final 2014-2015 college football rankings: Ohio State leads composite Top 25, of course
We’ve combined pretty much every final ranking (one way or another) into one top 25.
Below is the Associated Press top 25, the historical gold standard of college football’s many human voting implements, along with the Coaches Poll, Football Outsiders’ F/+, and the Massey composite, which includes just about any rating you can possibly conceive of.
The title game’s entrants take the top two. Alabama’s next, thanks to love from the computers. The Tide’s followed by TCU, which fell from No. 3 to No. 6 in the season’s final Playoff rankings and responded by destroying Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl. The other team to finish among the Playoff’s foursome is Michigan State, which came back to beat Baylor in the Cotton Bowl.
Let’s hear it for the mid-majors making the final top 25s, btw! Boise State! Marshall! Memphis, in the human polls! This is Memphis’ first-ever AP-ranked finish, according to Sports Reference! (The next three teams outside the composite top 25, by the way: LSU, Arkansas, and Memphis.)
| Composite | Average | AP | Coaches | F/+ | Massey composite | ||
| 1 | Ohio State | 1 | 1 | Ohio State | Ohio State | Ohio State | Ohio State |
| 2 | Oregon | 2.25 | 2 | Oregon | Oregon | Alabama | Oregon |
| 3 | Alabama | 3.25 | 3 | TCU | TCU | Oregon | Alabama |
| 4 | TCU | 3.5 | 4 | Alabama | Alabama | TCU | TCU |
| 5 | Michigan State | 6.5 | 5 | Michigan State (tie) | Michigan State | Georgia | Michigan State |
| 6 | Florida State | 7.25 | 6 | Florida State (tie) | Florida State | Georgia Tech | Georgia |
| 6 | Georgia | 7.25 | 7 | Baylor | Georgia Tech | Ole Miss | Florida State |
| 8 | Georgia Tech | 7.5 | 8 | Georgia Tech | Baylor | Baylor | Baylor |
| 9 | Baylor | 7.75 | 9 | Georgia | Georgia | Clemson | Georgia Tech |
| 10 | UCLA | 11.5 | 10 | UCLA | UCLA | Florida State | Ole Miss |
| 11 | Mississippi State | 11.75 | 11 | Mississippi State | Missouri | Michigan State | UCLA |
| 12 | Ole Miss | 13 | 12 | Arizona State | Mississippi State | Mississippi State | Mississippi State |
| 13 | Clemson | 13.5 | 13 | Wisconsin | Wisconsin | Auburn | Missouri |
| 14 | Wisconsin | 14.5 | 14 | Missouri | Arizona State | Marshall | Wisconsin |
| 15 | Missouri | 16 | 15 | Clemson | Clemson | UCLA | Clemson |
| 16 | Arizona State | 16.75 | 16 | Boise State | Boise State | LSU | Auburn |
| 17 | Boise State | 18.25 | 17 | Ole Miss | Arizona | Oklahoma | Boise State |
| 18 | Auburn | 18.5 | 18 | Kansas State | Kansas State | Wisconsin | USC |
| 19 | Marshall | 20 | 19 | Arizona | Ole Miss | Arkansas | Arizona State |
| 19 | USC | 20 | 20 | USC | Utah | Stanford | Kansas State |
| 21 | Kansas State | 20.25 | 21 | Utah | USC | USC | Marshall |
| 22 | Arizona | 22.5 | 22 | Auburn | Marshall | Louisville | Arizona |
| 23 | Utah | 24 | 23 | Marshall | Auburn | Arizona State | Arkansas |
| 24 | Louisville | 24.25 | 24 | Louisville | Louisville | Boise State | Stanford |
| 25 | Stanford | 25.25 | 25 | Memphis | Memphis | Kansas State | LSU |
The Associated Press Top 25: The longest-running and best-respected human poll.
The USA Today Coaches Poll: Formerly part of the BCS, and now just a poll. Though polling athletic departments in order to rank other athletic departments is dubious, we still want multiple human polls in here, and it’s the other big one.
Football Outsiders’ F/+: Our personal favorite advanced stat, incorporating the work of our own Bill Connelly. It’s smarter than we are.
The Massey computer composite: A collection of ... every computer rating out there, plus a couple polls. By including it here, we’re giving extra weight to the two human polls, since they’re already two of the dozens of ratings included in the Massey. It changes as more rankings arrive, so we’ve included the latest version as of publication.
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