College Football's Elite Teams Are Closer Than Ever, And It's Going To Lead To More Upsets

It's seemed obvious through the first half of the 2025 season, but there's now data showing it. The gap between good and elite teams in college football is tiny. And it's why we're seeing so many "upsets," so many surprising programs jump up out of nowhere, and why there's so much uncertainty around the eventual 12-team College Football Playoff field.

The best example of this comes from ESPN's SP+ advanced ranking system. SP+ is a predictive metric, meant to approximate the point spread between two teams based on their efficiency on offense, defense and special teams. It's not a resume metric, but a forward-looking one. Similar to how Las Vegas or online sportsbooks determine their spreads.

And the gap between the best team in the country, moving forward, and a team that's ranked in the late teens is remarkably small. Much smaller than it used to be, for example.

As Bud Elliott posted on X this week, the gap between the No. 1 team in SP+ and the No. 17 team in SP+ is just one score. As recently as the 2019 season, it was three scores. So what does that mean moving forward? 

A lot.

COLUMBUS - Julian Sayin #10 of the Ohio State Buckeyes throws a first half pass while playing the Texas Longhorns at Ohio Stadium on August 30, 2025. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Tight Gaps Between Teams Will Lead To More Chaos, More Upsets

Through the first half of the season, the No. 1 team in the country looking forward is the Ohio State Buckeyes. No surprise, Ohio State won the National Championship last year and routinely brings in some of the best recruits in the country. 

Their SP+ rating, essentially a measure of how much better than the average team you'd expect them to be, is 27.6. For context, the 17th best team, the LSU Tigers, has a rating of 19.5. On a neutral field, per SP+, you'd expect the Buckeyes to be just a touchdown better than the 17th best team. That is insanely close. 

It's even more ridiculous looking at the teams ranked 5th-15th. 

The Texas A&M Aggies sit No. 5, with a 22.2 rating. There are not one, not two, not three, but six teams within roughly one point of No. 5. Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Missouri, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Texas Longhorns and Tennessee Volunteers. All those teams have a rating of 21.0 or higher. 

The next set is equally tight. 

Georgia has a 20.8 rating, Alabama is 20.8, USC is 20.7 and Miami is 20.5. There's virtually no difference in quality between these teams. From No. 5 to No. 15 the gap is 1.7 points. Want to know why things have seemed to change so quickly this year relative to other years? This is it. 

Connelly ran this analysis himself, showing that the best teams in 2025 are much worse than they were in 2019, and those ranked No. 9-25 are much better. Thanks NIL. 

So what does this mean moving forward?

Well, we're likely to see more upsets. More chaos. More unpredictability. More games that are expected to be tight, hotly-contested, one-possession matchups. That's exactly how the projections shake out ahead of a mammoth Week 8 in college football. Notre Dame projected to beat USC by three points. Georgia and Ole Miss separated by just a point. Alabama and Tennessee by just two points. Vanderbilt and LSU are essentially neck and neck. Same with Utah and BYU. 

In short, if it feels like it's harder to tell who the best teams are because they're struggling with back-end top-25 teams they'd usually beat, that's because it is harder. They are struggling. Because the gaps have never been closer. It means we're going to see three-loss teams make the playoff. We're going to see more upsets. And we're going to see more tight games and parity. Exactly what we love about college football.