Tomorrow's Top 25 Today: Texas vaults back into top 10 as BYU, Texas Tech fall in college football rankings

Another week in the 2026 season has brought about another round of upsets, and after multiple losses to top-10 teams, there are set to be some more changes to the new college football rankings. 

No. 2 BYU and No. 8 Texas Tech each took their first loss of the season to unranked opponents, while No. 7 Ole Miss lost at No. 19 Texas, and we still await the conclusion of No. 8 Utah hosting No. 14 Houston at the time of publication. 

If you combine those results with No. 15 Iowa and No. 16 USC both taking their second losses of the season, both to unranked teams, we have a week where the very top of the rankings might be easier to figure out than most of the spots outside the top 10. 

No. 1 Miami made things easy by putting a 50-burger on the board against Pitt, and more than half of the top five were off in Week 8 to provide very little room for upward momentum. But some of the changes further down in the rankings, including the result of Texas' win against Ole Miss, present the voters with unique challenges. 

How should voters react, for example, to the fact that Texas has a trio of great wins but also two stunning losses? The Longhorns were projected to be one of the best teams in the country, and they have provided results that make them merely one of the "very good" teams as October comes to a close. The good news for Texas, from a rankings perspective, is that "very good" seems to be good enough to sneak back into the top 10, which is an ideal spot for a College Football Playoff hopeful.  

Another thing to watch is a much more dispersed set of ballots. 

Last week the voters were extremely dialed in on the top 25. Most voters saw eye-to-eye on the top 24 teams in the country, and then everyone seemed to have their own unique flavor for No. 25. Last week only 32 teams received votes in the balloting, and this week it would not be a surprise at all to see as many as 40 teams getting a look for those last two or three spots on the ballot after multiple ranked losses outside the top 10.

Here's how we think the new AP Top 25 will look on Sunday after Week 8. 

1. Miami (Last week -- 1): The Hurricanes played their first game as the No. 1 team in the country since 2002 and quickly made it clear there would not be a third straight week of change at the top of the poll. Miami raced out to a 17-0 lead and went to the locker room up 31-7, tacking on a couple extra scores after halftime to cruise to a 52-23 win. A win as AP No. 1 is yet another marker of success for Mario Cristobal, who got to honor the 2001 title team with some throwback uniforms and a final score fitting of their title standard.   

2. Ohio State (3): The Buckeyes were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next week at USC. 

3. Notre Dame (4): The Fighting Irish were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next week against Navy at home. 

4. Georgia (5): The Bulldogs were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next week in their annual rivalry game against Florida. 

5. BYU (2): Our projection here is that the voters will not, in the consensus, be respecting the head-to-head result of BYU over Notre Dame in their reassessment of the Cougars. Even though that game happened just one week ago, voters tend to be harsher with their reactions when top teams lose to unranked opponents. Still, the Notre Dame win on its own stands as better than anything some of the other one-loss teams have inside the top-10. That sets up a pretty high floor for any sensible readjustment to BYU's spot on the ballot. 

6. Indiana (6): Some voters may shift their ballots based on the Hoosiers' gritty-but-ugly win in overtime against Michigan. It was one of the biggest games of the day and featured zero touchdowns in regulation. The aesthetics of the result are likely to lead to some shifting of opinion among the AP voters. 

7. UCLA (9): A slow start created some uneasiness around UCLA's big-time spotlight on CBS, but the Bruins played a much more effective second half and improved to 7-0 on the season with a 28-10 win against Michigan State. Two first-half fumbles kept the game close, but Michigan State's offense never posed much of a threat against a Bruins defense that has become a driving factor of their success over the last four games. 

8. Utah (10): The Utes are currently in action against No. 14 Houston. 

9. Kentucky (12): On a very busy night across college football, Kentucky did the best thing a ranked team could do and stayed quiet. The Wildcats got a good push from Vanderbilt early but reclaimed command of the game and poured it on late for a 34-17 win against the Commodores. Will Stein's team is now 7-1 overall and 5-1 in the SEC, standing firm as a realistic contender for a top-10 ranking at the end of the season.  

10. Texas (19): The Longhorns snapped their two-game skid with a thunderous top-10 win against Ole Miss, setting up the most complicated profile of the week for AP voters. Texas has wins against Ohio State, Ole Miss and Tennessee, yet also two losses on its profile. As it washes out for voters, we expect Texas will be right in the mix as the top two-loss team in the country, which puts it in the range of jumping back into the top 10.

11. Alabama (13): Tuscaloosa was another spot where it looked like we could see another upset, but the Crimson Tide flipped the game on Texas A&M with a 14-0 fourth quarter to pull away from an 11-point win. Keelon Russell got back on track with 311 passing yards and three touchdowns, sending Alabama into the off week with a 6-2 record.    

12. Texas Tech (8): The strength of Texas Tech's placement in the rankings was its unbeaten status, and after Saturday's loss at Cincinnati, the Red Raiders' resume is going to face much tougher scrutiny. The good news is that the team has an early-season quality win to bolster its profile, having defeated Houston back in September.  

13. Houston (14): The Cougars are currently in action against No. 10 Utah.  

14. Wake Forest (17): The Demon Deacons were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next week against Virginia. 

15. Ole Miss (7): The head-to-head advantage against LSU serves as a nice landing spot for voters looking to move Ole Miss down after the loss at Texas. The Rebels did not play a particularly clean game but also were not outclassed in any way that would dramatically change the way they are viewed against their peers. Ole Miss has two wins against ranked opponents (LSU, Missouri) and two losses against ranked opponents (Texas, Florida) to make them the perfect middle-of-the-pack teams in a midseason AP Top 25 poll. 

16. LSU (18): The off week arrives with Lane Kiffin's Tigers sitting at 6-2 overall but still lacking the high-end wins that can make an argument for big moves up in the rankings. LSU's ceiling is clearly higher than its current ranking, and those opportunities will come on the other side of the bye with Alabama, Texas and Tennessee in consecutive weeks.  

17. Florida (20): The Gators were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next week against Georgia. 

18. Tennessee (11): Beating Alabama had the Vols firing up the rankings past a Texas team that it had lost to earlier in the season. Now at 6-2 after losing to South Carolina on a walk-off field goal, voters are going to group Tennessee in with a cluster of quality two-loss teams in the SEC. Unlike BYU, there might not be as much of a hit for the "loss to an unranked team" adjustment here, since oddsmakers did have South Carolina as the narrow favorite heading into the game.   

19. Boise State (21): Add the Broncos as another team that got off to a bit of a slow start in a tricky spot before righting the ship late. Boise State was tied 10-10 at Washington State late in the third quarter but scored three fourth-quarter touchdowns to pull away for a 31-10 win that looks much better to voters scanning the top 25 scoreboard.  

20. Missouri (22): The Tigers were off in Week 8 and will be back in action next Saturday night against Arkansas. 

21. SMU (23): Kevin Jennings passed Tanner Mordecai for the SMU career passing touchdowns record with three scores through the air, and running back Kendrick Raphael scored three times (two rushing, one receiving) against his former team in a 59-20 win against Cal. 

22. Northwestern (24): We are not projecting voters to overreact in the wake of beating Rutgers, but the Wildcats continue to prove their worth as one of the best teams in the Big Ten. Northwestern is now 6-1 overall, with the lone loss coming to Indiana by six points. There's admittedly not a lot of meat to the profile in terms of high-end wins, but the way this offense can get downhill when it's rolling is impressive. Aidan Chiles was the star on Saturday in the 42-14 win against the Scarlet Knights, totaling five touchdowns (three passing, two rushing) in the victory.  

23. Arizona (25): On a day that saw close to maximum carnage in the Big 12, it was Arizona that stayed steady. The Wildcats never gave Iowa State an inch of breathing room and rode their defense to a comfortable win, improving to 6-1 on the season.  

24. Oklahoma State (NR): If just nine of the 41 voters who did not have Oklahoma State on last week's ballot had put them at No. 25, then the Cowboys probably don't fall out of the rankings after a loss to Houston. As it is, they finished 26th in the voting points and are now set up for an easy bump back into the rankings after a 57-24 win against Colorado. While the Oregon win does not have the pop it once did, the Pokes did beat a Ducks team that had Dante Moore and also took care of business against the same UCF team that just beat BYU. 

25. Wisconsin (NR): One read of Wisconsin's profile from a rankings perspective might be the "quality loss" boost, considering the Badgers are now 5-2 with the only losses coming to Notre Dame and UCLA. But Wisconsin didn't just beat USC on Saturday night in Madison; it put the clamps on an offense that we know has enough talent to overwhelm lesser competition. In the wake of the 24-7 win against the Trojans, we're projecting a move up into the top 25 that would mark the program's first AP poll appearance since 2023, Luke Fickell's second season in Madison.