NCAA Football Rankings: New AP Top 25 And Coaches Polls Released — Final Regular Season Rankings Don’t Change Much At Top

The final NCAA football rankings for the 2015 regular season have now been released, and the undefeated Clemson Tigers are still on top. The new Associated Press Top 25 Poll and Coaches Poll don’t look overly different at the very top, but some upsets during rivalry games brought about jumps and drops in the numbers.

As expected, the Tigers of Clemson are sitting on top of both polls, and that is no big surprise. As reported by CBS Sports, though, the Big Ten is absolutely dominating the top of the rankings. Some first place votes were taken away from Clemson due to their struggles against rival South Carolina on Saturday.

Perhaps the biggest hit of the weekend came to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who were looking to end up in the final four of the College Football Playoff. Stanford’s last-second field goal to defeat the Irish 38-36 pretty much dashed those hopes, according to Yahoo Sports.

Michigan did not help themselves any by getting trounced by Ohio State 42-13 at home. The Wolverines will end up with a decent bowl game, but didn’t give any credibility to their early-season dominance with that loss.

Check out the new Coaches Poll for this week, and see just who has an advantage as the regular season ends.

1. Clemson
2. Alabama
3. Iowa
4. Oklahoma
5. Michigan State
6. Ohio State
7. Stanford
8. North Carolina
9. Florida State
10. Notre Dame
11. TCU
12. Baylor
13. Northwestern
14. Oklahoma State
15. Florida
16. Oregon
17. Ole Miss
18. Houston
19. Michigan
20. Utah
21. Temple
22. Navy
23. LSU
24. USC
25. Wisconsin

The Associated Press Top 25 Poll was also released, and it has the exact same top four, but in a slightly different order. Clemson still has a strong hold on first place with Alabama right behind them, but the next two spots are flip-flopped from the Coaches Poll. In the AP Poll, the Oklahoma Sooners are third, while the undefeated Iowa Hawkeyes are fourth.

From there, much of the polls are the same, and it would be hard for the top four to jump much before the end of the championship games next weekend. Still, the College Football Playoff rankings, to be released on Tuesday, could up looking slightly different.

1. Clemson
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma
4. Iowa
5. Michigan State
6. Ohio State
7. Stanford
8. North Carolina
9. Notre Dame
10. Florida State
11. TCU
12. Baylor
13. Northwestern
14. Oklahoma State
15. Oregon
16. Ole Miss
17. Houston
18. Florida
19. Michigan
20. Temple
21. Utah
22. Navy
23. LSU
24. USC
25. Wisconsin

One team that jumped back into the polls (both at number 23) is the LSU Tigers. They defeated Texas A&M 19-7 to end a three-game losing streak, but the much bigger storyline was the up-in-the-air future of head coach Les Miles.

After a big regular season ending victory along with a lot of support and love shown by fans, boosters, coaches, and players — LSU chose to keep Les Miles on as their head coach. He will coach them in whatever bowl game they end up invited to and into the future.

Already, many other big name coaches are starting to find themselves in other locations for next year or unemployed. On Sunday morning, ESPN reported that the Mark Richt was stepping down as head coach of Georgia Bulldogs, but one source said he had been fired.

Georgia will owe Richt a buyout of $4.1 million, according to his contract extension from January. He had not yet signed it, but the school said they would honor it. The Bulldogs were the preseason favorite to win the SEC East, but a 9-3 record kept them out of the SEC Championship Game.

Other axes are likely to fall before it’s all said and done, but those coaching teams in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and/or Coaches Poll are likely safe. Still, the NCAA football rankings aren’t always good measures of pure success, but now it’s known who sits where and all that’s left are the College Football Playoff rankings later this week.

[Image via Streeter Lecka/Getty Images]