What Are FBS Rankings?

The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) -- formerly known as Division I-A -- is a designation established in 2006 by the NCAA and included the renaming of schools formerly known as Division I-AA, which are now referred to as the NCAA Football Championship Subdivsion. The FBS is made up of 120 member schools, and the national rankings of each school play a large part in determining which two teams play for the national championship.

  1. Associated Press

    • The Associated Press (AP) college football top 25 rankings are voted on by 65 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the country. These voters work for nationally known sports channels such as ABC sports and ESPN, as well as newspapers such as the "Arizona Republic, " "Miami Herald" and "The Boston Globe." Each voter is asked to cast a ballot after college football games are played on Saturday. The votes are then compiled and ranked based on which teams receives the most votes, followed by the second team all the way through to the team that received the 25th most votes. When the official ranking is released, the top-ranked team will often have a number in parentheses next to its name, which represents the number of first-place votes the team received. If the top-ranked team was not a unanimous choice, the second and third teams will typically have a number in parentheses, indicating the number of first-place votes they received.

    "USA Today" Coaches Poll

    • The "USA Today" Coaches rankings are voted on by 59 head coaches of football subdivision schools and must all be members in good standing of the American Football Coaches Association. Though coaches are required to be the ones who watch teams and play, controversy has erupted over the fact that some coaches allow their assistants to fill out their ballots. In addition, since 2010, individual ballots are kept secret, which frees coaches of having to explain their votes and increases the chances of biased voting.

    Harris Interactive

    • The Harris ranking -- first used in September 2005 -- is determined by the votes from 114 panelists culled from the ranks of former players, former coaches, school administrators and members of the media. The voting members are selected by a random drawing of more than 300 potential panelists nominated by FBS schools. Similar to other football rankings, the Harris ranking lists the top 25 schools based on a numerical ranking system from first through 25th.

    BCS

    • The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is an FBS system that determines the two teams that will play for the national championship. The BCS was established in the 1998 to 1999 seasons and uses the Harris rankings and the "USA Today" Coaches ranking, in addition to computer rankings, each of which comprise one-third of the BCS standings. Unlike the other rankings, which typically release their top 25 teams before the season begins, BCS rankings are not released until the seventh week of the season. Because they determine major bowl selections and the national title game, BCS rankings are eagerly anticipated and are an annual source of controversy due to how the computer rankings are tabulated. The AP rankings were used as part of the BCS formula until the 2004 to 2005 season, when following a split national title in which the AP voted the University of Southern California number one and the BCS crowned Louisiana State University the champion, the AP requested that its ranking no longer be used as part of the BCS rankings.