With spring practices beginning and one more transfer portal window coming up in two months, it’s time for national outlets to start crunching the numbers on who the top contenders are for the 2025 college football season.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly, creator of the SP+ ratings system, posted the first rankings for the 2025 season on Thursday morning.
Here are the top five teams from the Group of Five in that initial set of rankings:
Boise State Broncos: #31, SP+: 9.5, Offensive SP+: 35.3 (#15), Defensive SP+: 25.8 (#53), Special Teams SP+: -0.3 (#132)
James Madison Dukes: #47, SP+: 4.0, Offensive SP+: 29.7 (#46), Defensive SP+: 25.7 (#51), Special Teams SP+: 0.1 (#53)
Tulane Green Wave: #50, SP+: 3.4, Offensive SP+: 31 (#35), Defensive SP+: 27.6 (#66), Special Teams SP+: 0.0 (#77)
Memphis Tigers: #52, SP+: 2.8, Offensive SP+: 35.2 (#16), Defensive SP+: 32.3 (#101), Special Teams SP+: 0.1 (#42)
Liberty Flames: #59, SP+: 1.1, Offensive SP+: 27.8 (#61), Defensive SP+: 26.7 (#59), Special Teams SP+: -0.2 (#105)
Unsurprisingly, the Boise State Broncos are the highest-ranked team to start after putting together a run to the College Football Playoff and returning the most production of any team in the Group of Five for the coming year.
Connelly pointed out that the Broncos are ranked significantly higher than the next-highest team in the Mountain West Conference (UNLV #70). Liberty are in a similar boat in CUSA at #59, 35 spots ahead of Western Kentucky at #94.
“In the Mountain West and Conference USA, the conference races start out as, well, non-races. Boise State is projected 10.6 points ahead of the MWC’s second-best team, UNLV (which is at least 4.6 points ahead of everyone else), while Liberty is 8.7 points ahead of everyone else in C-USA.” — Bill Connelly, ESPN
The second-highest ranked team in the G5 is Bob Chesney’s James Madison Dukes after a 9-4 record in 2024. They’re 15 spots ahead of South Alabama, who sit at #62. of the G5 leagues, the Sun Belt conference has the highest average SP+ rating at -7.
The American Athletic Conference appears to be the most competitive of the G5 leagues, with the top three teams within just ten rankings of each other (#50 Tulane, #52 Memphis, #60 Army). The AAC has five teams within five SP+ points of the top of the conference.
Leading the Mid-American Conference are the defending champions Ohio at #72, followed closely by Toledo at #75. At the very bottom of the rankings are the Kent State Golden Flashes at #136 with -27.2 points.
Connelly noted he expects to update the rankings in May following the spring transfer portal window.
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