Each week, the Sports' editorial team selects its Top 25 FBS college football teams for the Student Media Poll.
The SMP is a nationwide poll featuring 97 student journalists from schools nationwide.
The Post Sports will break down its ballots each week. Here are the top five, those dropped from the top 25 and those added.
Logan Adams, sports editor
Top Five
Oregon
Ohio State
Georgia
Miami (FL)
Penn State
The biggest game of the week was the second-most important game of the Big Ten schedule. The Buckeyes bested the Nittany Lions in a classic, despite one of Will Howard’s worse performances of the season. Oregon sticks at number one with a blowout over Michigan while Georgia, Miami and Penn State maintain top-five spots.
Who I dropped: Navy, Illinois
Illinois suffered back-to-back embarrassing losses. The first came in a blowout to Oregon, which can’t be looked at with too much blame, however, its most recent, a 25-17 loss to an unimpressive Minnesota team, makes a late-season push back into the poll a tough ask for Illinois.
Navy is in a similar situation. A blowout to AP top-10 Notre Dame was followed by a 24-10 loss to 3-6 Rice. With the back-to-back losses, the highly-anticipated Army-Navy matchup has lost significant steam.
Who I added: Colorado, South Carolina
Colorado has put together some impressive wins in the past couple of weeks, beating Arizona and Cincinnati. On the other hand, it suffered a close, but excusable, loss to Kansas State three weeks ago. The Buffs are far from a contender, but this is a far-improved team from 2023.
South Carolina has been flirting with a top-25 spot all year, especially in these past three games. First was a close, last-minute loss to Alabama, followed by a dominant victory over Oklahoma. Most recently is the Gamecocks’ most impressive victory, a 44-20 win against Texas A&M, giving reason to their ranking.
