ESPN releases 2026 college football rankings. Where does Boise State stand?
ESPN released its 2026 college football SP+ rankings on Friday morning, a metric that ranks teams based on how they would perform against an “average” squad.
The rankings don’t take into account a team’s strength of schedule, or even attempt to predict what final rankings look like. They simply analyze each team’s returning production, recent history and results, incoming recruits, and any potential effects of coaching changes to produce a predictive ranking of how good a team could be.
While these rankings are far from the end-all, be-all for preseason predictions, Boise State fans do have a reason to be buoyed by the results.
The Broncos are No. 39 in the nation in SP+, making them the highest-ranked team among the Group of Six conferences: the American, Sun Belt, MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and Pac-12. BSU, of course, moves from the Mountain West to the new Pac-12 this summer.
Why does this stuff matter?
Rules guarantee automatic bids to the College Football Playoff to the champions of the four Power Conferences — SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC — and the highest-ranked Group of Six team is still awarded an autobid.
The Group of Six autobid is how Boise State qualified for the 2024 CFP as the No. 3 seed, although at that time, the bid went to the highest-ranked conference champion. Now it’s not necessary to be a conference champ to earn that berth.
Here’s how Boise State compares to other Group of Six teams, both within the new Pac-12 and across the nation as a whole.
Where does Boise State rank in the Pac-12?
If there’s one clear thing to take from these SP+ rankings, it’s that the Broncos likely will enter the season as the favorite for the conference title.
The closest team to the 39th-ranked Broncos is San Diego State, another Mountain West defector, which is ranked No. 71. Here are the eight football-member teams of the Pac-12:
- 39th - Boise State
- 71st - San Diego State
- 78th - Fresno State
- 85th - Washington State
- 89th - Texas State
- 91st - Oregon State
- 97th - Utah State
- 99th - Colorado State
ESPN also calculated the average SP+ rating for each conference, and the results were fairly clear: There’s a true “Power Two” of the SEC and Big Ten, with the Big 12 and ACC lagging behind. The Pac-12 kind of sits alone in a weird territory between the Power Four and the rest of the Group of Six:
- SEC (14.5)
- Big Ten (11.0)
- Big 12 (7.4)
- ACC (6.4)
- Pac-12 (-3.7)
- Mountain West (-8.2)
- American (-8.2)
- Sun Belt (-12.2)
- Conference USA (-13.7)
- MAC (-15.9)
Where does Boise State sit nationally?
The closest Group of Six team to the Broncos in the SP+ rankings is former Mountain West foe UNLV, at 59th. The Broncos and Rebels, who remain in that league, met in the past three conference championship games, with the Broncos winning each time.
Here are the top 10 Group of Six teams heading into the new season:
- 39th - Boise State (Pac-12)
- 59th - UNLV (Mountain West)
- 63rd - Navy (American)
- 68th - New Mexico (Mountain West)
- 70th - Memphis (American)
- 71st - San Diego State (Pac-12)
- 72nd - North Dakota State (Mountain West)
- 73rd - UTSA (American)
- 76th - East Carolina (American)
- 77th - James Madison (Sun Belt)
Although only two Pac-12 teams sit among the top 10, the conference still is relatively loaded compared to its contemporaries. The Pac-12’s lowest-ranked team, Colorado State (99th), would be sixth out of the 10 teams in the Mountain West, above Wyoming (106th), Nevada (112th), San Jose State (122nd), Northern Illinois (125th) and UTEP (129th).
This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 3:20 PM.
