College Football Rankings 2024: Way-too-early Top 25 projections for next season

The Michigan Wolverines are national champions. Amid controversy, amid a multitude of outside noise, Jim Harbaugh brought his alma mater back to the pinnacle of college football. They'll finish the season as the lone undefeated team, surely No. 1 in the college football rankings.

But what about next year's college football rankings? With the transfer portal and NFL Draft declarations shaking up every roster in the country, the landscape will change heading into the 2024 season. In fact, there's still so much that we'll still learn when it comes to the portal and from position battles in the spring.

As for now, though, we'll take a look at our projections for the Top 25 college football rankings for the 2024 season, a way-too-early glimpse at what next year's top teams in the country will look like.

College football rankings 2024, Early Top 25 projections: No. 25-21

25. SMU Mustangs (2023 Record: 11-3)

We know that Rhett Lashlee, especially with quarterback Preston Stone returning for the 2024 season, is going to have SMU cooking once again on offense. But what went underrated was that the Mustangs had one of the best defenses in the entire country this past season. With the move the ACC, the level of competition should increase, but the Mustangs have the coaching and personnel to be a troublemaker in their new league.

24. Miami Hurricanes (2023 Record: 7-6)

Mario Cristobal has vastly underperformed the talent he’s had with the Miami Hurricanes. Now he has an apparent QB question, though I believe Jacurri Brown showed enough in the Pinstripe Bowl to make me believe he could actually be the answer. Still, if it all coalesces in Coral Gables, The U has the talent, particularly in the trenches, to dominate a lot of ACC competition and get back to prominence instead of mediocrity. 

23. Kansas Jayhawks (2023 Record: 9-4)

Few coaches have done as well in as hard of a job as Lance Leipold has done with the Kansas Jayhawks. The hope is that quarterback Jalon Daniels, who is returning, can stay healthy. The Jayhawks return a ton of talent, the QB included, and the defense might take a step forward after seeing some youth progress this past year. 

22. USC Trojans (2023 Record: 8-5)

Caleb Williams’ departure was supposed to make way for Malachi Nelson. But when the USC quarterback entered the portal, so too did Lincoln Riley – but only to find out in the Holiday Bowl that he might already have his guy in Miller Moss. That has raised the vibes for the Trojans tremendously. If D’Anton Lynn can level the defense up to its talent baseline, USC could be a sneaky dangerous team as it moves to the Big Ten. 

21. Oklahoma State Cowboys (2023 Record: 10-4)

There are a number of Big 12 teams that will fall into the 15-25 range in the early college football rankings, which tells you how wide-open that conference is going to be with some newcomers and departures. Oklahoma State is as good a candidate as any to fill the void at the top with Alan Bowman and Ollie Gordon II returning along with some playmakers on defense. Mike Gundy has been highly successful but needs to put the full season together to take control of the conference in 2024.