Saturday Index · 2026 season · Entering Week 8

Power rankings

Every team in the published field, measured on the same Saturday Index rating scale. The Top 25 leads; the complete national order follows.

2026 · Week 8Data updatingUpdated Oct 18, 7:55 AM EDT

Complete national board

Updated after Week 7 · 59 completed games with published expectations · As of Oct 18, 7:55 AM EDT

138ranked teams

Leading tier

The top three

Highest-rated teams in the current publication

Latest movement

This week’s biggest movers

Only teams whose own performance changed their rating are shown; passive shifts remain in the full national table.

Biggest risers

Biggest fallers

2026 · Projection archiveThe field after Week 4Earlier projection · Sep 30 · Newer games not includedOpen archiveClose archive

This Week 4 projection is preserved for reference. It does not include newer games or reflect the current rankings above.

Projected seeds from 100,000 season simulations. Ratings and results through Sep 27, 2026.

First-round byes

First-round matchups

At Ohio State

12James Madison 5Ohio State

At Alabama

11Indiana 6Alabama

At Texas Tech

10Oregon 7Texas Tech

At Ole Miss

9LSU 8Ole Miss

The season simulation uses the accepted Premium rating model. Weekly game forecasts are published separately. These projected seeds are subject to the eventual playoff selections.

How the field is selected

The displayed field is the most frequent group of twelve under our season-guide display preferences: one Group of Six entrant and no four-loss at-large team. These preferences are editorial, not official selection rules.

Seeds are estimated from each team’s simulated seed frequencies. The combined order does not represent one complete simulated season. The committee model’s conference-title treatment has not been historically calibrated.

Saturday Index

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