Inspirational thought of the week:
Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again
Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life
Seasons change with the scenery
Weavin' time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me?
Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
-- "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon & Garfunkel (or The Bangles, depending on how old you are)
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the bank of telephones used to raise money for the "Free Marty Smith From Oxford" fund, we once again look at the calendar and realize that it is conference championship weekend, which means it's time for the Bottom 10 to make like Lane Kiffin and run for the exit amid a shower of boos and middle fingers.
The #Bottom10 Selection Committee is currently in session to determine the final 2025 rankings, to be revealed Wednesday morning. pic.twitter.com/WdIvj25gNW
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) December 2, 2025
Due to an unprecedented coaching carousel that was so bonkers we've renamed it the Coaching Tilt-A-Whirl, the candidates list for this year's Bottom 10 Selection Committee grew faster than Brian Kelly's lawyers' billable hours invoice. The final roster: me, my dad, Captain Morgan (aka my stepdad), Mike Gundy, current Northwest Oklahoma defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville and former Texas State Armadillos head coach Ed "Straight Arrow" Gennero. As our vote began, we were joined by Sam Pittman, who pulled up to our meeting spot, a truck stop behind the Gaylord Texan where the fancy-schmancy CFP committee was gathered, behind the wheel of a shoebox Winnebago blasting Skynyrd and towing a pontoon boat upon which the name "S.S. YESSIR" was airbrushed.
Once again, we leaned on our Bottom 10 FPI formula. No, not the ESPN Football Power Index, but rather the Faux Pas Index. Because everyone loves math.
Teams receive one point for each win, minus one point for each loss, minus one point for each loss of their longest losing streak of the year, plus a minus-10 bonus if that longest losing streak is currently active. We also subtract the number of points they have surrendered on the season from the number of points they scored, subtract or add points based on their season turnover margin and subtract their weakness of schedule (WoS) ranking. If a team fired its head coach, that earns a 50-point subtraction, aka the Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus.
Divide all of that by the number of games played, and there's your Bottom 10 FPI score. Because it's hard numbers, the results are indisputable. And by hard numbers we mean that we made the formula so badly complicated that it's too hard to dispute because it's not worth wasting the effort to do so.
With apologies to Tennessee wide receiver Deon Hardin, Mizzou running back Ahmad Hardy, Rice running back D'Andre Hardeman Jr. and Steve Harvey, here's the final 2025 Bottom 10 rankings.
1. UMess (0-12)
Wins: +0
Losses: -12
Longest losing streak: -12 (current -10)
Point differential: -330 (133 for, 463 against)
Turnover margin: -7
WoS: -91
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -450
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -37.5
The Minuetmen had their wet hay in the barn a full week early, having played their final game of the season on the Tuesday afternoon prior to Thanksgiving. Once they got that hay into the barn, they remembered that the Salem witch trials took place in Massachusetts and they immediately burned that barn down in an effort to exorcise their Bottom 10 demons.
2. Sam Houston, We Have a Problem (2-10)
Wins: +2
Losses: -10
Longest losing streak: -8
Point differential: -241 (213 for, 454 against)
Turnover margin: +2
WoS: -104
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -359
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -29.9
The Bearkats kompiled a two-win kampaign, but still katapulted kompletely over kontenders who had only one win. How did they akkomplish that? Bekause of a krappy strength of skedule and a defense too frekwently skored upon.
3. Ughlahoma State (1-11)
Wins: +1
Losses: -11
Longest losing streak: -11 (current -10)
Point differential: -230 (170 for, 400 against)
Turnover margin: -5
WoS: -30
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: -50
Total: -346
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -28.8
Many people in the greater Stillwater area had told me that I didn't have the Kowboys, er, sorry, Cowboys ranked low enough. When we did the FPI math, it backed up those complainers with the same amount of force that it backed down their team.
4. Georgia State Not Southern (1-11)
Wins: +1
Losses: -11
Longest losing streak: -9 (current -10)
Point differential: -217 (237 for, 454 against)
Turnover margin: -11
WoS: -66
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -323
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -26.9
Just as the arithmetic hurt OSU, it helped GSU, which jumped/fell from No. 2 to No. 4. That might not seem like much, but for a team that last won a game more than 80 days ago, you'll take whatever good news you can get.
5. The Lane Train
Marty said if I didn't have Kiffin in the Coveted Fifth Spot again this week he would beat me over the head with the turkey leg he wasn't able to eat with his family on Thanksgiving because he had to go to Oxford and hold a microphone instead.
6. Colora-duh State (2-10)
Wins: +2
Losses: -10
Longest losing streak: -6 (current -10)
Point differential: -148 (222 for, 370 against)
Turnover margin: -4
WoS: -90
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: -50
Total: -316
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -26.3
Easily, the most vocal "How can we not be ranked?!" #Bottom10Lobbying crowd of 2025 was Rams Nation. And when we did the math, they were proved right as Colorado State leapt like a ram from a rock formation off the Waiting List into the canyon of nearly the top/bottom five. Now they have hired professional Bottom 10 rehabilitation specialist Jim Mora, who totally ruined what used to be the Bottom 10's version of Chiefs vs. Eagles, UMess vs. U-Can't, by inexplicably turning the Huskies into winners.
7. Charlotte 1-and-11ers (1-11)
Wins: +1
Losses: -11
Longest losing streak: -9 (current -10)
Point differential: -264 (172 for, 436 against)
Turnover margin: -8
WoS: -70
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -271
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -22.5833333
Niners officials reached out to the Bottom 10 committee to see if perhaps they might receive bonus cool points for the fact that their record was 1-9 when Georgia paid them $1.9 million to play "between the hedges." We told them no, but only after reaching out to UNCC math professors, who assured us that the laws of natural numerical law would not allow us to add something called "cool points" to something called a "Faux Pas Index." Speaking of math, Charlotte also is now part of a Bottom 10 FPI first, a numerical tie! With whom ... ?
8. Oregon Trail State (You have died of dysentery) (2-10)
Wins: +2
Losses: -10
Longest losing streak: -7
Point differential: -135 (218 for, 353 against)
Turnover margin: -11
WoS: -60
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: -50
Total: -271
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -22.5833333
It should be no surprise that the Beavers would be in some weird spot here after spending their entire season stuck in a bizarro Bottom 10 vortex. They won the tiebreaker with Charlotte via one common opponent, Appalachian State. The Niners lost at home to the Mountaineers 34-11, while the Beavs lost in Boone by only four points. One of only a pair of members of the 2Pac conference, Oregon State had already beaten its only league colleague, Warshington State, in Week 10, but then immediately lost to Sam Houston. Then all the Beavers had to do was beat Wazzu again to depart these rankings for good, but they lost 32-8. Now they will do like all beavers and spend the winter not hibernating, but packed into a mud lodge with other beavers, shivering and seeing who has to swim out under the ice to get food. In related news, that's also how we on the Bottom 10 Selection Committee spent this week. We sent Mike Gundy out to get the food because his haircut totally looks like a beaver.
9. UTEPid (2-10)
Wins: +2
Losses: -10
Longest losing streak: -5 (current -10)
Point differential: -85 (280 for, 365 against)
Turnover margin: -12
WoS: -109
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -229
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -19.1
Representatives of the Minors crashed our committee meeting to remind us that while they understood they would likely have to be ranked, no matter what the math said, they had to be ranked above/below Sam Houston because they beat the Bearkats head-to-head. But we didn't hear any of that because when we say they crashed our meeting, they literally crashed our meeting. Paydirt Pete had to use his pickax to pry the UTEP conversion van free from where it ran into the trailer carrying Pittman's pontoon boat.
10. Bah-stan Cawledge (2-10)
Wins: +2
Losses: -10
Longest losing streak: -10
Point differential: -88 (305 for, 393 against)
Turnover margin: -9
WoS: -54
Randy Edsall Fired Coach Bonus: N/A
Total: -169
Games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Faux Pas Index: -14.08
The Golden Beagles were in a Bottom 10 peloton to the finish line, which was more like that scene at Oklahoma a few weeks ago when the Sooners got lost in the smoke of their stadium entrance and fell over each other, piling up like firewood for winter. In the end, Arkansaw and Pur-don't received too big of a Power 4 WoS boost, while Muddled Tennessee and No-vada both had the audacity to win two out of their final three games, hitting the Raise Hell Praise Dale 3-victory mark and moving out of the running. We started to do the FPI math on a few other teams, but when the batteries ran out in our Texas Instruments calculator, Coach Pittman, relieved his former Hogs missed the final cut, announced, "I'll go to the store, but it won't be to buy batteries. It'll be to buy beer." Meeting adjourned.
Waiting List: Arkansaw Fightin' Former Petrinos, No-vada, San No-se State, Pur-don't, Muddled Tennessee State, Northen Ill-ugh-noise, ULM (pronounced "Uhlm"), conference tiebreakers that require slide rules.