College Football Playoff Rankings Come Out Tonight: The Second Top 25 Arrives at 8 P.M. Central on ESPN
The College Football Playoff selection committee unveils its second top 25 of the 2026 season tonight between the Champions Classic games in Chicago. A new No. 1 is expected after Miami's first loss — but nothing is official until the committee speaks at 8 p.m. Central.
The second College Football Playoff rankings of the 2026 season arrive tonight. The selection committee's new top 25 is scheduled to be unveiled between 9 and 9:30 p.m. Eastern — 8 p.m. Central — on ESPN, tucked between the two games of the Champions Classic men's basketball doubleheader in Chicago, USA TODAY reported. The window is a short one, and its exact start could shift with the length of the opening game between Michigan State and Duke.
The reveal comes one day after the playoff itself changed shape off the field: the CFP announced on Monday an expansion to a 24-team field, USA TODAY reported. This season, though, still runs on the current 12-team format, and tonight's rankings are the committee's second read on the race for those 12 places.
Movement at the top is expected. Tuesday's rankings are expected to debut a new No. 1 overall team, USA TODAY reported, after Miami dropped its first game of the season on the road at Notre Dame; the Fighting Irish, in turn, are expected to rise from their debut No. 11 seed after securing the signature win the committee was looking for. Further movement — or correction — is also expected involving UCLA, Indiana, Alabama and BYU following the Week 10 games. Those are the expectations going in; the committee's actual order is not known until it is announced, and this story asserts no ranking in advance of it.
After tonight, the remaining reveals on the 2026 schedule are Tuesday, Nov. 17 and Tuesday, Nov. 24, then Tuesday, Dec. 1, with the final field set on Selection Sunday, Dec. 6, in a show running from noon to 3 p.m. Eastern. Austin Capital News will publish the full second top 25 — and where it leaves the playoff picture — in tonight's late cycle once the rankings are official.
