How it works
The AP Top 25 is decided by a panel of about 60 sportswriters and broadcasters. This one is decided by whoever shows up.
When you can vote
Ballots open the moment the last FBS game on Saturday goes final, usually late Saturday night Central time. They close Monday at 10:00 AM CT, and the new Top 25 publishes right then. If a game is delayed past Sunday morning, ballots open at 6:00 AM CT Sunday anyway.
How the math works
Your #1 team gets 25 points, #2 gets 24, and so on down to 1 point for #25. We add up every team’s points across all ballots and divide by the number of ballots. The result is each team’s average points per ballot, and the Top 25 is simply that list sorted. A team left off your ballot gets 0 from you. Ties go to the team with more first-place votes, then the team on more ballots.
Why there are no accounts
Anyone can vote, no sign-up needed. To keep it fair, each browser gets one ballot per week (you can edit it until the deadline), a quick Cloudflare check screens out bots, and a network sending ballots at bot-like speed gets slowed down. A whole campus on one network can still vote. We never store your IP address, only a one-way scrambled version that changes every week.
Which teams are eligible
All 138 FBS programs for the 2026 season, from the SEC to the Sun Belt plus the independents.