Composite college football top 25 rankings: Clemson, Ohio State consensus top teams

Bill Bender

Composite college football top 25 rankings: Clemson, Ohio State consensus top teams image

Way-too-early top 25 lists are the only way to start the upcoming college football season.

Sporting News has already released its top 25 for 2020, but we weren’t the only one. Athlon, Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Stadium and USA Today have submitted way-too-early entries as well.

Those lists revealed that the only team everyone could agree on for 2020 is Clemson, a unanimous No. 1 selection across all eight sets of rankings. The Tigers return junior quarterback Trevor Lawrence and should be in the mix for another Playoff berth next season. Ohio State, which lost to the Tigers in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal, is the consensus No. 2, garnering six second-place votes.

MORE: SN top 25 for 2020 college football season

The rest of the rankings reflect a few surprises. So SN wanted to determine a consensus top 25, using all eight publications' rankings in that endeavor. We used an inverse scoring method (awarding 25 points to a No. 1 selection, 24 for a No. 2 selection, all the way down to one point for a No. 25 selection) to determine the highest possible score for each school. Clemson garnered the maximum 200 points.

With that in mind, here's a look at the composite way-too-early top 25 for 2020:

Composite top 25 preseason college football rankings

Rank Team Total High Low
1 Clemson 200 1 1
2 Ohio State 190 2 3
3 Alabama 183 2 4
4 LSU 171 3 10
5 Oklahoma 159 5 8
6 Florida 148 6 10
7 Oregon 148 5 11
8 Georgia 145 2 13
9 Penn State 142 5 12
10 Notre Dame 130 8 15
11 Auburn 107 5 16
12 Wisconsin 101 10 18
13 Texas A&M 90 6 N/R
14 Michigan 88 12 20
15 Minnesota 75 11 N/R
16 Texas 69 13 24
17 Cincinnati 56 12 N/R
18 Oklahoma State 50 13 N/R
19 Boise State 42 17 N/R
20 USC 41 14 N/R
21 Iowa State 34 10 N/R
22 Memphis 34 15 N/R
23 North Carolina 30 19 N/R
24 Iowa 29 10 N/R
25 Arizona State 21 18 N/R

Others receiving votes: Baylor 19; Louisville 17; UCF 16; Utah 14.5; Virginia Tech 10.5; TCU 9; Washington 8; Virginia 3; Florida State 3; Cal 3; Purdue 2; Tennessee 1; Ole Miss 1

Composite top 25 rankings by site

Rank SN B/R SI CBS ATHLON ESPN STADIUM USA
Clemson 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Ohio State 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3
Alabama 3 3 4 3 3 3 4 2
LSU 4 4 10 4 4 4 3 4
Georgia 5 9 2 9 8 6 13 11
Oregon 6 10 6 7 11 5 9 6
Oklahoma 7 5 7 5 5 8 7 5
Notre Dame 8 8 9 10 9 10 15 9
Penn State 9 7 5 12 6 9 11 7
Florida 10 6 8 6 7 7 8 8
Auburn 11 12 14 8 16 12 5 13
Minnesota 12 15 11 11 13 19
Texas 13 20 21 17 14 24 16 14
Wisconsin 14 11 13 15 10 14 12 18
Michigan 15 14 20 14 12 15 18 12
Texas A&M 16 13 25 13 15 11 6 19
Oklahoma State 17 18 15 19 13 24
Utah 18 T-24 21
Louisville 19 16 ——
Cincinnati 20 12 18 17 17 16
North Carolina 21 22 19 25 22 22 22 25
Arizona State 22 19 18 24
Virginia 23
UCF 24 23 22 19
Boise State 25 17 22 20 18 18 20
USC 16 16 14 17
Baylor 21 23 25 20 22
Virginia Tech T-24 20 23
Memphis 17 19 24 21 15
Florida State 23
Purdue 24
Iowa 21 21 23 10
Iowa State T-24 23 16 10 21
Tennessee 25
TCU 17
Washington 20 24
Ole Miss 25
Cal 23

Bill Bender

Bill Bender Photo

Bill Bender graduated from Ohio University in 2002 and started at The Sporting News as a fantasy football writer in 2007. He has covered the College Football Playoff, NBA Finals and World Series for SN. Bender enjoys story-telling, awesomely-bad 80s movies and coaching youth sports.