Sports
Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 1, from Georgia to Temple

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams.
Week 1 is complete, and we’ve finally gotten a look at everyone in FBS. Well, not everyone (sorry you have to wait, Ball State).
After a weekend that gave us only a few upsets but several mighty impressive performances, where does everyone move in this week’s edition of The Athletic 134?
Welcome back to the top spot, Georgia, for its 34-3 domination of Clemson. Welcome to the top 25, Vanderbilt! The Commodores were ranked 95th in the preseason rankings, but after an overtime win against popular ACC darkhorse Virginia Tech, why shouldn’t Vandy move up near the top 25 for now? It was the most shocking result of the season, against a team in my preseason top 25.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
Sign Up
Penn State, Miami and Georgia Tech also moved up, while Florida State, Florida and others have dropped.
A reminder: The rankings will be volatile early. Wins against quality and competent teams are rewarded and skewed. Teams can make big jumps quickly with good wins. Teams that beat up on inferior competition won’t move much or might even “drop,” but that’s simply because someone else jumped with a notable win. Don’t worry. Relax. It will take a few weeks for everything to sort out, once everyone has played at least one game of note. I try to emphasize results, and it takes time for everyone to have one.
Here is the Week 2 edition of The Athletic 134.
1-10
I considered moving Notre Dame to No. 2 just for this week. I did. The 23-13 win at Texas A&M was better than anything anyone in the top six did outside of Georgia. But Notre Dame isn’t the second-best team in the country, and everyone else looked fine against low-level competition, so it’s a slight move up for the Irish for now. Don’t expect them to move out of this area for a while with a favorable schedule for the next month. But this Notre Dame win may look better as the season goes on, which would impact the ranking.
Penn State, welcome to the top 10. I was a preseason skeptic. I didn’t believe in Drew Allar, but Saturday’s 34-12 win at West Virginia was a complete physical domination, and we saw an offense willing to throw the ball down the field and one that schemed those receivers open. It felt different than last year’s game. Maybe it’s a Week 1 overreaction, but it made me think this isn’t just a team that could make the College Football Playoff but one that could win a game or two.
Michigan and Oregon nearly dropped out of the top 10 after too-close-for-comfort wins against Fresno State and Idaho, respectively. Both teams were in a one-score game deep into the fourth quarter. But they won, so they get some Week 1 benefit of the doubt, for now. Next up is Texas and Boise State for each, so we’ll learn quickly if they’re for real.
11-25
Rank | Team | Record | Prev |
---|---|---|---|
11 |
1-0 |
10 |
|
12 |
1-0 |
11 |
|
13 |
1-0 |
14 |
|
14 |
1-0 |
15 |
|
15 |
1-0 |
33 |
|
16 |
0-1 |
13 |
|
17 |
1-0 |
18 |
|
18 |
1-0 |
19 |
|
19 |
1-0 |
20 |
|
20 |
1-0 |
21 |
|
21 |
1-0 |
22 |
|
22 |
1-0 |
25 |
|
23 |
0-1 |
16 |
|
24 |
1-0 |
62 |
|
25 |
1-0 |
95 |
Hello, USC. The overhauled defense looked more than competent, and Miller Moss looked like a proper Lincoln Riley quarterback as the Trojans upset LSU 27-20 and now move up to No. 15, while the Tigers drop to No. 16.
Clemson hangs on in the top 25 for now at No. 23. This is mostly based on my belief Georgia would do that to almost everyone. Boston College’s 28-13 win at Florida State was more dominant than the final score, as the Eagles jump from No. 62 to No. 24, and Vanderbilt’s overtime win at Virginia Tech moves the Commodores to No. 25.
26-50
Georgia Tech rises to No. 26 after a 2-0 start. The Yellow Jackets would’ve been in the top 25 until BC’s dominant win Monday night made the win over FSU in Ireland look less impressive. That’s how things can change week to week.
No. 27 NC State needed to come back in the fourth quarter and hold on against Western Carolina. The same for No. 29 Boise State against Georgia Southern. The Wolfpack and Broncos stay put in their positions for now. North Carolina moves up 10 spots to No. 36 after a win at Minnesota, thanks to a missed Gophers field goal, but the loss of quarterback Max Johnson for the season could be a problem.
Florida State drops from No. 9 to No. 46 after its dreadful 0-2 start, and right behind the Seminoles are the Florida Gators, two programs with fans facing existential crises.
Colorado moves up a few spots and into the top 50 after beating North Dakota State 31-26. The Buffaloes looked a lot like last year’s team, and some questionable clock management by Deion Sanders gave the Bison a shot at the end, but it was still a solid victory against a very successful program with its share of FBS upsets. TCU sits at No. 49 after a 31-24 win at Stanford.
51-75
UNLV just misses out on the top 50 after a dominant 27-7 win at Houston that was nearly a shutout. If you thought last year’s UNLV season was a fluke, the Rebels opened with a statement win, though concerns about the passing game persist after Week 1.
Arizona State’s 48-7 win against Wyoming might’ve been the most shocking margin of victory of the weekend, and ASU moves all the way up from No. 89 to No. 53. A Sun Devils program that finished 124th nationally in scoring last year (17.8 points per game) put it on a Wyoming defense that is usually very solid.
South Carolina drops nine spots and out of the top 50, falling to No. 54 after coming back and barely holding on for a 23-19 win against Old Dominion. The same goes for Texas Tech, which falls to No. 57 after needing a two-point stop in overtime to escape an Abilene Christian team that put up 615 yards of offense.
Coastal Carolina put it on Jacksonville State 55-27 in a surprisingly dominating performance to move up 30 spots to No. 64. The Chanticleers have now won seven of their last nine under head coach Tim Beck.
76-100
Is it already time to believe in Jeff Choate’s Nevada? The Wolf Pack hung with SMU in Week 0 and showed it wasn’t a one-off with a 28-26 win at two-time defending Sun Belt champion Troy. Nevada rockets up more than 50 spots to No. 76, after being lifeless for the past two seasons.
Old Dominion and Georgia Southern move up despite their losses as they put in good performances with fourth-quarter leads. Why lean on a preseason ranking if they both played better than expected in defeat? North Texas’ solid win at South Alabama moves the Mean Green up to No. 93.
Sam Houston was my preseason Conference USA team to watch, and the Bearkats made a statement with a 34-14 win at Rice to move up to No. 99. The Bearkats started last year 0-8 but won three of their last four and now start 2024 at 1-0. Hawaii played sloppy in a Week 0 win against Delaware State but nearly knocked off UCLA in Week 1, losing on a last-second field goal. So the Rainbow Warriors move up a few spots to No. 98. We’ll see which is the real Hawaii. Florida Atlantic moved up one spot into the top 100 after a close (but sloppy) 16-10 loss at Michigan State.
101-134
Arkansas State needed a last-second touchdown to beat Central Arkansas, so the Red Wolves drop to No. 103. New Mexico is 0-2, but buy that Bronco Mendenhall stock while you can. The Lobos had a 17-point fourth-quarter lead against Montana State in Week 0 and trailed Arizona by just three at halftime in Week 1. New Mexico lost both of those games, but the team has more of a pulse than we’ve seen in a while. As a result, the Lobos move up six spots to No. 116. New Mexico State needed a touchdown with less than two minutes left to beat Southeast Missouri State, so the Aggies drop to No. 117.
There is a new No. 134. Kennesaw State played UTSA deep into the fourth quarter, so the Owls move out from the bottom. In comes a different group of Owls. Temple turned the ball over six times in a 51-3 loss to Oklahoma. Things have been rough in Philly for the past few years, and it didn’t look any better Saturday.
The Athletic 134 series is part of a partnership with Allstate. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Photo of Kirby Smart: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

Sports
Naomi Osaka calls Indian Wells loss to Camila Osorio the worst match she has ever played

Naomi Osaka showed that she is on the road to recovery from the abdominal injury that forced her out of the Australian Open in January, but getting sharp and match tough is going to take a little more time.
Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1, lost to Camila Osorio of Colombia, the world No. 53, in straight sets Wednesday night (6-4, 6-4) in the first round of Indian Wells. On social media, she later described the defeat as the “worst match I’ve ever played in my life.”
Osaka, ranked 56th, and Osorio were dead even through the first eight games, but Osaka committed a flurry of errors while serving at 4-4. It gave Osorio the chance to serve out the set, and the spunky Colombian didn’t waste it.
The game was a microcosm of the match. Osaka committed errors every which way. Balls flew long and wide. Some missed by a few inches. Others missed by a few feet.
The errors were especially prevalent when Osaka was under pressure. Osaka and Patrick Mouratoglou, her coach since September, focused on that dynamic for months and seemed to have made headway as Osaka got on a roll at the start of the year.
Osaka made the finals in Auckland and was rolling against Clara Tauson when she aggravated an abdominal injury and had to retire after the first set. Osaka played some of her best tennis since her return from maternity leave at the beginning of 2024 through 2 1/2 matches at the Australian Open, including a win over Karolina Muchova, one of the world’s top players.
Then, Osaka strained the muscle again and had to retire from her third-round match with Belinda Bencic after the first set. She had dominated Bencic until the injury.
Osaka returned to California and rested. But she had two hard weeks of training ahead of Indian Wells, and Mouratoglou pronounced her ready to go. Physically, perhaps, but the tennis just wasn’t there.
“It’s crazy for me, a dream come true,” said Osorio, 23, who had never won a match in Indian Wells. Her win marked the first time a woman from Colombia has beaten a former world No. 1.
For Osaka, who won Indian Wells in 2018, the loss allows her to rest before she heads to the Miami Open, one of the events closest to her heart and near where she grew up in South Florida. After her defeat, Osaka confirmed that her body is fit, but her form just was not there.
“I don’t think I was too good on my end,” she said in her news conference.
She described a frustrating month after the Australian Open in which she was not allowed to play for a week, could not serve for another week, then was allowed to slowly begin serving but only if she slowly increased her intensity week by week so as not to reinjure her abdominal muscle.
“I did well in Australia,” she said. “It feels a little bit like stopping starting again.”
That said, even with the loss, Osaka said her start to the year feels far better than last year, when she struggled to find any consistency. Or maybe she’s getting used to the idea she will likely never have a smooth ride back to the top of the sport.
“It feels like a bump in the road,” she said. “I don’t feel like I played well at all, but I still feel like I had so many chances to be in the match.”
Required reading
(Photo: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Sports
FBI adds former Olympian to most wanted list, offers $10 million reward

The FBI added a former Olympian and a Canadian national to its list of top 10 most wanted fugitives on Thursday.
The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $10 million for the capture of Ryan Wedding, 43. Wedding, who competed in a snowboarding event for Canada in the 2002 winter Olympics, is wanted for allegedly running “a transnational drug trafficking network.”
FBI Los Angeles chief Akil Davis said in a press conference Thursday that Wedding’s alleged trafficking ring “routinely shipped hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, through Mexico and Southern California, to Canada and other locations in the United States, and for orchestrating multiple murders and an attempted murder in furtherance of these drug crimes.”
“Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and in his native Canada,” Davis said in a statement.
LA MAYOR BASS’ CLASHES WITH REPORTERS ON WILDFIRES REMOVED FROM LEADER’S SOCIAL MEDIA, LIVESTREAMS
“The alleged murders of his competitors make Wedding a very dangerous man, and his addition to the list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, coupled with a major reward offer by the State Department, will make the public our partner so that we can catch up with him before he puts anyone else in danger,” he added.
Davis noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved the $10 million reward for Wedding’s capture. The FBI is also offering an additional $50,000 for information leading to his arrest.
Wedding was previously convicted in the U.S. of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and he was sentenced to prison in 2010, according to federal records.
The FBI says Wedding’s aliases include “El Jefe,” “Giant,” “Public Enemy,” “James Conrad King,” and “Jesse King.” They say he is roughly 6’3″ and 240 pounds.
Federal authorities first issued an arrest warrant for Wedding in September of last year, but he has still not been apprehended.
CHARGERS’ JIM HARBAUGH ON CONTROVERSIAL TUSH PUSH: ‘GET GOOD AT IT OR STOP IT’
Thursday’s announcement comes just after the Justice Department announced the capture of one of Wedding’s alleged accomplices, Andrew Clark, 34. Clark, a Canadian citizen who was living in Mexico, was arrested by Mexican authorities in October 2024 and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Arizona.

The FBI is cracking down on drug trafficking across both of America’s borders under new director Kash Patel. (Anna Moneymaker/Kent Nishimura)
The indictment says Wedding and his associates conspired to deliver shipments of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Los Angeles to Canada using long-haul semi-trucks.
Wedding is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances; conspiracy to export cocaine; continuing criminal enterprise; murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime; and attempt to commit murder in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise and drug crime.
Sports
Tutu Atwell and Rams agree to terms on one-year, $10-million contract

While the Rams continue their attempt to trade star receiver Cooper Kupp, they moved Thursday to make sure quarterback Matthew Stafford still has another familiar face to pass to.
The Rams have agreed to terms with pending free-agent receiver Tutu Atwell on a one-year contract that includes $10 million in salary and bonuses, a person with knowledge of the situation said Thursday. The person requested anonymity because the deal has not been finalized.
Atwell, 5 feet 9 inches and 165 pounds, was a surprise second-round draft pick in 2021. After a rough rookie season, the speedy and diminutive Atwell became a solid contributor in a receiver corps that eventually included Kupp, Puka Nacua and Demarcus Robinson.
Nacua supplanted Kupp, who struggled with injuries the last three seasons, as the No. 1 receiver in coach Sean McVay’s offense. He is expected to lead a unit that now includes Atwell, second-year pro Jordan Whittington and will grow during free agency and the draft.
Unless he is re-signed, Robinson will become a free agent Wednesday.
Kupp is due to earn $20 million in salary and bonuses this season, according to Overthecap.com. He is due to receive a $7.5-million bonus next week, so the Rams are working to trade him before that comes due.
“We’re working to try to find a partner and a next chapter for Cooper and ourselves,” general manager Les Snead said Wednesday.
Last season, Atwell had 42 catches for 562 yards, both career bests. He earned about $1.5 million in salary in 2024, according to Overthecap.com.
Atwell is the second pending free agent to re-sign with the Rams.
Left tackle Alaric Jackson received a three-year contract that includes $35 million in guarantees.
-
Sports1 week ago
NHL trade board 7.0: The 4 Nations break is over, and things are about to get real
-
News1 week ago
Justice Dept. Takes Broad View of Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons
-
World1 week ago
Hamas says deal reached with Israel to release more than 600 Palestinians
-
Science1 week ago
Killing 166 million birds hasn’t helped poultry farmers stop H5N1. Is there a better way?
-
News1 week ago
Christianity’s Decline in U.S. Appears to Have Halted, Major Study Shows
-
World1 week ago
Germany's Merz ‘resolute and determined,' former EU chief Barroso says
-
Technology1 week ago
Microsoft makes Copilot Voice and Think Deeper free with unlimited use
-
Culture1 week ago
Ostriches, butt cheeks and relentless energy: How Austin Hedges became an indispensable MLB teammate