College football rankings: Notre Dame moves into top four as upsets lead to shakeup in CBS Sports 134

Usually when we get to the final weeks of the college football season, the rankings can get pretty static from week-to-week. But what we saw in Week 13 was highly unusual as a slate that is often defined by pre-rivalry week warmups delivered a bountiful collection of upsets that upended the perceived order of the top teams in the country. 

Sorting out a top 25 is hard enough, but the movement throughout the CBS Sports 134 — our comprehensive ranking of every FBS team — was dramatic coming out of the weekend. Of all the teams in the top 23 spots of our rankings, only three (No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Texas) are still in the same position as the rankings update heading into Week 14. That includes a small but significant jump inside the top five where Notre Dame jumped ahead of Penn State to take over the No. 4 spot that was occupied by Indiana prior to the Hoosiers’ loss in Columbus over the weekend. The Fighting Irish played in one of the few ranked-on-ranked games of the week and dominated, beating Army 49-14 and sending the Black Knights tumbling down to No. 23 in the rankings. 

A big reason for the shakeups throughout the rankings was a string of upsets in the SEC where Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M lost as road favorites to teams that, prior to Saturday, were not bowl eligible. We’ve got the expected rankings adjustments for those squads — Alabama and Ole Miss each falling seven spots to the mid-teens, while Texas A&M dropped just four spots to No. 20 — but also some bumps up for Florida and Oklahoma after those upset wins secured bowl eligibility and improved their standing against other teams inside the top 60 of our FBS-wide rankings. For more on those adjustments and other notable moves throughout the top half of the CBS Sports 134, check out the Mover’s Report below the top 25 table.  

Those upsets did open the door for teams like Georgia, SMU and Boise State to move up after winning over the weekend, and Arizona State had the biggest move of anyone within the top 20, jumping up nine spots to No. 13 after handing BYU its second loss of the season.

So now instead of a static rankings picture heading into rivalry week, we’ve got chaotic tiebreaker scenarios and the potential for even more changes heading into the postseason. College football always delivers at the end of the year, but in 2024 we’re set for a wild conclusion to a first-of-its-kind season.   

College football experts from CBS Sports and 247Sports contribute ballots each week, which are averaged together for our rankings. You can see the top 25 below and 26-134 on our rankings page.

Biggest movers 

• No. 34 Florida (+18): Back-to-back wins against LSU and now Ole Miss have presented our voters with a difficult thought experiment: Do you rank Florida based on its loss count or the quality of those losses? The Gators are 6-5, but all five of the teams that it’s fallen to are in the top 20 of our current CBS Sports 134, including four teams in the top 11. It’s going to be difficult to crack the top 30 with five losses, but it’s clear the Ole Miss win has led to a reassessment of Florida’s profile.  
• No. 49 Kansas (+14): The Big 12 giant slayers continued their ways with a big win against Colorado that now has the Jayhawks on a three-game winning streak and heading into the regular-season finale against Baylor with a chance to reach bowl eligibility. That seemed unimaginable when Kansas was 1-5 to start the year, but victories over Iowa State, BYU and now the Buffs have totally flipped the way we view this team in 2024. 
• No. 51 Oklahoma (+13): Another team that has rebounded from a poor start, Oklahoma underwent both quarterback and coordinator shuffling in the middle of the season and has emerged stronger on the other side. The Sooners’ win against Alabama secures bowl eligibility for the 26th consecutive season, the second longest active streak in the country. 
• No. 13 Arizona State (+9): The Sun Devils have won four straight games and now with a win against BYU get to see the profile boosted enough for a jump into the conversation with other top two-loss teams in the country. Arizona State had started its climb last week in the CBS Sports 134 after beating Kansas State, and now our voters’ hesitation has been totally removed as the Sun Devils try to clinch a spot in the Big 12 title game in Week 14. 
• No. 23 Army (-8): A closer margin against Notre Dame would have lessened the rankings adjustment, but the result was so impactful that it created two-way action in the CBS Sports 134. Our voters gave Notre Dame extra credit for the win while also dropping one-loss Army behind AAC foe Tulane and Mountain West contender UNLV, who both have 9-2 records. 
• No. 36 Washington State (-9): Instead of bouncing back from an upset loss at New Mexico, Washington State again fell on the road, this time to Oregon State. Early season wins against Texas Tech and Washington did a lot of work to help the Cougars’ rankings profile, but with two bad losses in the last two weeks, voters had a hard time keeping them inside the top 30.   
• No. 61 Virginia Tech (-12): The Hokies are in a rough spot right now, riding a three-game losing streak into rivalry week and needing a win against Virginia to reach bowl eligibility. At 5-3, this was a team that was threatening to make a move into the top 30, but the free fall on the field has been matched with a free fall in our rankings. 
• No. 39 Pittsburgh (-13): Saturday’s defeat against Louisville marks four straight losses since Pitt’s 7-0 start, and while that early season success included five power conference wins, the defeats are revealing a much different form from the Panthers late in the season.   

Check out the rest of the CBS Sports 134: Teams ranked 26-134