The most watchable college football teams so far this season
Oregon is 6-3 and, with Texas, has been the most watchable team in college football. Utah is 9-0 and sits in a 28-way tie for 16th. Liberty is 8-1 and hasn't played a single game worth putting on. On a Saturday with dozens of games and one TV, the rankings tell you who's good. They don't tell you who's fun.
So I counted. The Lineup Is ranks every college football game every Saturday, and after the final whistle each game either cleared our bar for worth watching or it didn't. For each team I took every finished regular-season game and worked out how many of them cleared it.
The window is the first Saturday, August 29, through Tuesday night, November 10, 2026: 688 finished games. 121 of them cleared the bar, about one in six. That's a much lower rate than the NFL, which makes sense. A lot of September is ranked teams beating teams they schedule to beat.
Our data has 236 teams in it, but only 138 of them played at least nine games. Every other team shows up three times or fewer, as a one-off opponent of those 138. So this ranking covers the 138 teams with at least nine games, which in practice is the top division.
The top 15
Ranked by share of games that cleared the bar, with ties broken by count. Records are from final scores. The list stops at 15 because the next spot is a 28-way tie at 3 of 9, a group that includes Tennessee, Kentucky, USC, Florida, Alabama, Miami and unbeaten Utah.
| Rank | Team | Record | Games | Worth watching | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oregon | 6-3 | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| 1 | Texas | 7-2 | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| 3 | Indiana | 8-1 | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 3 | West Virginia | 5-4 | 9 | 5 | 56% |
| 5 | Houston | 7-2 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | Kansas | 3-6 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | Michigan | 5-4 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | North Carolina | 5-4 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | Ohio State | 6-3 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | SMU | 7-2 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | South Carolina | 6-3 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | Syracuse | 4-5 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | TCU | 4-5 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | Texas Tech | 8-1 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
| 5 | UCF | 5-4 | 9 | 4 | 44% |
Ratings here use our scoring as of November 12, which gives regular-season overtime and early upset leads less weight than it used to.
The top of the list
Texas: 6 of 9
Texas has played the hardest-to-ignore schedule in the country. On September 12, No. 4 Texas beat No. 1 Ohio State 24-23. Two weeks later, now No. 1 itself, it won 20-17 at Tennessee. Then unranked Oklahoma beat the Longhorns 27-24, and unranked Florida did the same a week later by the same score, with Arch Manning's touchdown pass making it a three-point game with just over four minutes left. Wins over Ole Miss (34-27) and in Missouri (34-20) round it out. The three that didn't clear were blowouts of Texas State, UTSA and Mississippi State.
Oregon: 6 of 9
Oregon started at No. 2 and has lost three times, which is part of why it's here. A 39-31 loss at Oklahoma State as the No. 6 team in the country cleared. So did a 17-15 home loss to UCLA, where Oregon scored a touchdown with 2:16 left and missed the two-point try. Then the Ducks won 41-27 at USC, beat Nebraska 17-14 and Northwestern 34-26, and went into Columbus last Saturday and beat Ohio State 41-28. That last one wasn't close late. Oregon led 38-14 in the fourth quarter. Two ranked teams meeting in Columbus is a game people tune in for whatever the score.
Two teams at 5 of 9
Indiana is 8-1 and got there the hard way: 13-6 in overtime at Michigan, 23-16 in overtime over Minnesota, 20-17 at Nebraska, and a 19-15 loss to Ohio State. West Virginia is the other, and it's the odd one. It's in the surprises below.
Of the eleven teams at 4 of 9, Texas Tech has the best record at 8-1. It beat Houston 28-26 and West Virginia 53-48.
The bottom of the list
I'd planned a bottom 10. There isn't one. Thirty-one of the 138 teams have played at least nine games and none of them cleared the bar.
| Team | Record | Games |
|---|---|---|
| Akron | 1-9 | 10 |
| Arizona State | 5-4 | 9 |
| Ball State | 3-6 | 9 |
| Bowling Green | 3-7 | 10 |
| Coastal Carolina | 3-6 | 9 |
| Colorado State | 3-6 | 9 |
| Georgia State | 5-4 | 9 |
| Georgia Tech | 2-7 | 9 |
| Hawai'i | 3-6 | 9 |
| Jacksonville State | 7-2 | 9 |
| Kent State | 3-7 | 10 |
| Liberty | 8-1 | 9 |
| Memphis | 7-2 | 9 |
| New Mexico | 8-1 | 9 |
| New Mexico State | 3-6 | 9 |
| North Dakota State | 7-2 | 9 |
| Northern Illinois | 0-9 | 9 |
| Old Dominion | 3-7 | 10 |
| Oregon State | 5-4 | 9 |
| Rutgers | 2-7 | 9 |
| Sacramento State | 2-8 | 10 |
| Sam Houston | 1-8 | 9 |
| San José State | 5-5 | 10 |
| South Florida | 6-3 | 9 |
| UL Monroe | 2-7 | 9 |
| UNLV | 5-4 | 9 |
| Utah State | 4-5 | 9 |
| UTEP | 1-8 | 9 |
| Washington State | 1-8 | 9 |
| Western Michigan | 7-3 | 10 |
| Wyoming | 6-3 | 9 |
Surprises
Liberty and New Mexico are 8-1 with nothing on the list. Liberty's closest game was a 24-23 win over Gardner-Webb. Its one loss, 20-13 at James Madison, didn't clear either. New Mexico's lone loss was 14-6 at Oklahoma, and its average margin is among the ten widest of the 138. Good records against schedules like these don't draw many eyes, and our ranking reflects that.
Michigan plays the closest games in the country, and only four of nine cleared. Seven of Michigan's nine games finished within a touchdown, the most of any team, and its average margin is the narrowest of all 138. The four that cleared were 17-10 over Oklahoma, a 20-19 loss to Iowa, 21-18 over Penn State and a 13-6 overtime loss to Indiana. A 13-12 win over Western Michigan and a 20-14 loss at Minnesota didn't. Close is necessary, not sufficient.
The unbeatens are mid-table or lower. Utah is 9-0 and cleared three times. UCLA is 9-0 and cleared twice, with only one game within a touchdown. No. 1 Miami is 8-1 with three, and Georgia and Notre Dame are 8-1 with two each. Georgia and Miami have two of the six widest average margins of the 138.
West Virginia is unranked, 5-4 and tied for third. The Mountaineers keep getting into shootouts: 45-42 over Cincinnati, a 45-42 loss at Iowa State, and a 53-48 loss at Texas Tech sealed by a safety with 1:24 left. They also won 38-27 at Virginia and 24-20 at TCU. Five of their nine games were within a touchdown.
Our take
College football is the hardest sport to pick a game in. There were as many as 80 games on a single Saturday this fall, most of them overlap, and the good one is often not the one between the two best teams. The Lineup Is ranks every game on 11 factors, from Rankings and Close game to Rivalry and Playoff race, and keeps rescoring while games are on, so a 3:30 kickoff that turns into a shootout moves up while it's happening. Your teams always show up whatever their score. From here the playoff race starts to matter on almost every Saturday, and here's how the playoff works. This week's games are at thelineup.is/tonight/college-football.
The Lineup Is is an iPhone app that ranks every game by whether it's worth watching and tells you when one gets good.
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