College football rankings: Arizona makes late run as race for Bottom 25 supremacy heats up

Now that the 2024 regular season is over, several teams are hoping that they have done enough to earn a chance at winning college football’s most illustrious prize. Fates hang in the balance as a secretive selection process makes its final cuts and decides which 12 teams will battle it out with glory on the line behind closed doors 

I’m speaking, of course, of the Bottom 25 championship. For a 12th year in a row, CBS Sports will crown the absolute worst (as always, worst is a sincere compliment in this case) team in college football. But before one team ascends to the porcelain throne, we have a final set of rankings.

Kent State is in prime position to repeat and become the first back-to-back Bottom 25 champion since UTEP in 2017-18. But there are a few programs primed to give the Golden Flashes a run for their money. 

Arizona probably isn’t a contender, though the Wildcats do deserve a special mention as a new Power Four addition in the final full set of Bottom 25 rankings. Great work, Arizona. 

Purdue is one Power Four program that could certainly make a deep run in the Bottom 25 Playoffs, a rare instance for a school that plays in a conference with the resources and visibility of the Big Ten. Southern Miss and Kennesaw State are also strong contenders to unseat the Golden Flashes. 

It should be a competitive field of futile teams. Before the playoff commences, here’s how the final Bottom 25 of the year stacks up. 

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Bottom 25 rankings

The illustrious Tom Fornelli created the formula that we still use to generate the Bottom 25, but he has since passed on his writing duties. To be clear, the rankings are based on a series of calculations, but the quips are entirely man-made.