Top 25: Saturday Blitz Final 2014 College Football Rankings

Jan 12, 2015; Arlington, TX, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes players pose for a photo after defeating the Oregon Ducks in the 2015 CFP National Championship Game at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

The first year of the College Football Playoff season, nearly a century and a half after the sport began on the heels of the United States Civil War, drew to a close Monday night with the Ohio State Buckeyes dominating the Oregon Ducks in the national championship game 42-20.

Our final Top 25 College Football Rankings look drastically different from many of the rankings throughout the season. While the SEC is still very well-represented, there obviously couldn’t be three teams from the conference in the Top 5 anymore. We had to modify that a bit.

The gap between the conferences has clearly closed, as will be shown in these rankings.

Once again, as always, these are still not power rankings but rankings based on the body of work each team put in. Ole Miss, for instance, losing 42-3 to TCU is viewed the same as if they had lost 21-20. The same holds true for Oregon’s victory over Florida State and subsequent loss to Ohio State.

So taking in schedule strength, record, head-to-head, level of bowl competition, and of course, the College Football Playoff results into account, here are the final Top 25 rankings for the 2014 college football season.

Next: Begin Rankings With No. 25 Ranked Team