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Come Fan with UsWednesday, August 5, 2026

2016 college football rankings, Week 4: Ohio State, Louisville move up in top 5

Week 3 is in the books. Below are both major human polls and a couple other rankings of interest.

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Florida State came into Saturday as the No. 2 team in both human polls. Thanks to Lamar Jackson’s Louisville, the ‘Noles are very much not No. 2 anymore. That’s what happens when you lose 63-20. Fun fact: The Cardinals’ previous highest AP Poll spot ever was No. 3, in 2006.

Oklahoma suffered a similarly embarrassing loss to previous No. 3 Ohio State after a backup quarterback wrote a check his team could not cash. Taking a 45-24 L isn’t good for your polling prospects, Sooners.

Alabama remains No. 1 after beating Ole Miss, 48-43, in a game that has become unfortunately on-brand for the Rebels. And Notre Dame is officially out of the Playoff after a 36-28 loss against a top-10-ready Michigan State.

Also of interest in the rankings this week: North Dakota State ranks No. 28 in the AP with 78 votes after beating Iowa, the most votes for an FCS team ever.

Below is an update of the rankings after Week 3, which we made because we love you and are very kind. The College Football Playoff rankings aren’t out until Nov. 1, so we’ll have to wait to get mad online about that.

After the table you’ll also find a handy rankings explainer.

AP (prev, if diff) Coaches (prev, if diff) S&P+ Massey
1 Alabama Alabama Michigan Alabama
2 Ohio State (3) Ohio State (4) Alabama Ohio State
3 Louisville (10) Clemson (3) LSU Clemson
4 Michigan Louisville (10) Washington Stanford
5 Clemson Michigan Ohio State Houston
6 Houston Stanford Clemson Michigan
7 Stanford Houston Oklahoma Louisville
8 Michigan State (12) Michigan State Louisville Tennessee
9 Washington (8) Washington Florida Florida State
10 Texas A&M (17) Wisconsin (12) Florida State Wisconsin
11 Wisconsin (9) Georgia (13) Ole Miss Michigan State
12 Georgia (16) Tennessee (15) Stanford Arkansas
13 Florida State (2) Texas A&M (20) Tennessee Oklahoma
14 Tennessee (15) Florida State (2) Baylor Texas A&M
15 Miami (25) Baylor (19) Miami Baylor
16 Baylor (21) Florida (23) USC Washington
17 Arkansas (24) LSU (22) Oregon LSU
18 LSU (20) Arkansas (24) UCLA Georgia
19 Florida (23) Miami (25) Texas A&M Utah
20 Nebraska (NR) Nebraska (NR) Wisconsin Ole Miss
21 Texas (11) (tie) TCU (NR) Notre Dame Nebraska
22 San Diego State (NR) (tie) Ole Miss (17) Auburn Iowa
23 Ole Miss (19) Utah (NR) TCU Oregon
24 Utah (NR) Texas (16) Virginia Tech Miami
25 Oklahoma (14) Iowa (11) Oklahoma State North Carolina

The four rankings used here

The Associated Press Top 25: The longest-running and best-respected human poll. Didn’t have any official bearing on the latter years of the BCS, and doesn’t have any official bearing on the Playoff. Most outlets (including SB Nation) will use the AP’s rankings as the standard until the committee takes over in November, though.

The USA Today Coaches Poll: Formerly part of the BCS, and now just a poll. It tends to react more cautiously than the AP’s. Though polling athletic departments in order to rank other athletic departments is dubious, we still want multiple human polls in here, and this is the other big one.

The Massey computer composite: A collection of every rating out there. We include the latest version as of publication. (It does also include the two human polls, but they can’t sway it all that much.)

Bill Connelly’s S&P+ ratings: SB Nation’s favored advanced stat, which arrives a bit later than the others. An important thing to keep in mind: for the first few weeks, it also factors in preseason projections. It’ll look pretty weird early on, but it’s proved to be a very strong predictor against the Vegas spread over the long term.

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