Composite college football top 25 rankings for 2024: Georgia, Alabama lead Way Too Early lists

Bill Bender

Composite college football top 25 rankings for 2024: Georgia, Alabama lead Way Too Early lists image

Georgia is the unanimous No. 1 pick when looking at early college football rankings for 2024. 

Sporting News released its Way Too Early Top 25 for 2024, but we also looked at other sites to see how their rankings looked. That list includes 247Sports.comAction NetworkThe Athletic, Athlon, Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today and Yahoo Sports

The Bulldogs were No. 1 across the board. Georgia won the national championship in 2021 and 2022, but their bid for a three-peat was cut short after a 27-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC championship. 

Who else made the top five? It's the usual suspects with Alabama, Texas, Michigan and Oregon. The top seven teams were either from the SEC or Big Ten, a trend that will likely continue with those conferences expanding because of realignment. 

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.

BENDER: No one could stop Michigan, even if everybody wanted to

Composite top 25 preseason college football rankings

A look at a composite Way Too Early Top 25 college football ranking across 11 major websites. Here is each school with the total points scored and their high and low ranking: 

RANK SCHOOL TOTAL HIGH LOW
1 Georgia 275 1 1
2 Alabama 257 2 4
3 Texas 242 3 7
4 Michigan 239 2 7
5 Oregon 236 2 7
6 Ohio State 225 4 9
7 Ole Miss 214 4 9
8 Notre Dame 186 6 15
9 Missouri 169 8 21
10 Arizona 150 8 17
11 Penn State 145 9 18
12 LSU 136 8 20
13 Tennessee 134 9 21
14 Oklahoma 133 8 18
15 Washington 129 7 21
16 Clemson 124 10 21
17 Utah 122 11 19
18 Florida State 102 10 22
19 Kansas State 77 12 24
20 Oklahoma State 72 12 25
21 Kansas 42 17 NR
22 USC 39 18 NR
23 Louisville 33 16 NR
24 NC State 32 20 NR
25 SMU 13 18 NR

Others receiving votes: Miami 12, Iowa 12, Texas A&M 10, Memphis 3, Iowa State 3, Liberty 3, West Virginia 2, Boise State 2, Virginia Tech 1, Georgia Tech 1

Composite Top 25 rankings by site

A look at those Way Too Early Top 25 rankings shook out by each site: 

SCHOOL SN 24/7 ACTION T ATH ATHLON B/R CBS ESPN S/I USA Y!
Georgia 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Alabama 2 3 4 2 2 2 2 4 4 2 2
Texas 3 2 6 5 3 4 7 2 3 4 5
Michigan 4 7 2 6 4 3 3 6 6 3 3
Oregon 5 4 3 3 6 6 4 3 2 7 7
Ohio State 6 5 5 4 5 5 6 5 5 9 6
Ole Miss 7 6 9 8 7 7 5 7 7 5 4
Notre Dame 8 9 7 9 10 9 9 10 8 6 15
Washington 9 21 16 7 18 16 15 11 15 17 12
Florida State 10 22 20 19 17 19 19 16 14 18 10
Arizona 11 17 8 13 16 13 10 9 10 13 16
Missouri 12 8 10 21 8 8 8 8 9 14 11
LSU 13 13 14 20 14 15 12 14 17 10 8
Tennessee 14 11 17 14 11 21 14 17 12 12 9
Penn State 15 10 11 18 9 11 16 12 11 15 13
Clemson 16 14 18 10 13 10 21 19 16 11 14
Utah 17 16 19 11 15 12 13 13 13 16 19
Oklahoma 18 12 13 15 12 14 11 15 18 8 17
Oklahoma State 19 25 15 12 22 18 23 18 20 20 22
Kansas State 20 15 12 24 19 17 17 21 22 22 20
USC 21 18 21 NR 20 24 NR NR 25 19 21
Louisville 22 20 NR 16 23 NR 25 22 23 NR 24
SMU 23 NR NR NR NR NR 18 24 NR NR NR
Kansas 24 NR 23 17 21 22 20 23 19 NR 23
Georgia Tech 25 NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR
Iowa NR 24 NR 22 24 NR NR 25 NR 24 25
Iowa State NR NR NR 23 NR NR NR NR NR NR NR
West Virginia NR NR 25 25 NR NR NR NR NR NR NR
Miami NR 19 22 NR NR 25 NR NR NR NR NR
NC State NR 23 24 NR 25 20 22 20 21 21 NR
Liberty NR NR NR NR NR 23 NR NR NR NR 0
Texas A&M NR NR NR NR NR NR 24 NR NR NR 18
Boise State NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR 24 NR NR
Memphis NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR 23 NR
Virginia Tech NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR NR 25 NR

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.