The US LBM Coaches Poll is one of college football’s simplest ideas and one of its most revealing weekly snapshots: head coaches rank the Football Bowl Subdivision, and the points decide the Top 25. For the 2026 season, Sports listed the US LBM Board of Coaches and again showed how much separation can exist between teams inside the rankings and those just outside them.
The system itself is straightforward. During the regular season, the poll is conducted weekly, and the voting scale assigns 25 points to a first-place vote, 24 points to a second-place vote and so on until 1 point at 25th. That structure matters because it does more than produce a list. It creates a layered picture of consensus, and the margins between teams often say as much as the order itself.
What the 2026 poll shows
In the 2026 season poll, Northwestern stood at No. 25 with 107 points, while North Carolina had 1 point. That gap is a reminder that “ranked” and “receiving votes” are not the same category. The poll also included teams outside the Top 25, giving a fuller sense of where the edge of the national conversation sits.
Among the ranked teams and the names receiving points, the spread included No. 15 Florida, No. 23 Duke and No. 24 Pittsburgh, along with Northwestern 107, Arizona 92, Nebraska 74, Oklahoma 50, Wisconsin 39, Duke 35, James Madison 33, Florida 32, Pittsburgh 25, New Mexico 16, UTSA 10, Baylor 9, Memphis 6, Oregon State 2 and North Carolina 1. That distribution does not just identify who made the list. It shows which programs were close enough to be part of the broader ranking debate.
The other important piece is the board itself. Sports listed the 2026 US LBM Board of Coaches, and Kirby Smart of Georgia is on it. That matters because the poll is built from head coaches, which gives the rankings a particular kind of authority even as it leaves room for debate about how teams are viewed from week to week.
In other words, the US LBM Coaches Poll is not just a ranking. It is a weekly verdict from the sport’s decision-makers, a snapshot of how college football’s hierarchy looks before the next round of games changes everything again.
