Well, we’ve been here before.One year ago, I moved LSU to the No. 1 spot after its Week 1 win against Clemson. In 2026, I’ve done it again. The Tigers of LSU take The Athletic 138’s top spot for now after a dominant 51-10 win against the Tigers of Clemson. One week in, that was the most impressive performance of the year, a complete destruction including more than 600 yards of offense.Of course, rocketing to No. 1 didn’t work out last year, as LSU finished 7-6 and ended ranked No. 42. But that’s the nature of this exercise. It’s not about projecting. It’s about what teams have done so far this college football season.The annual reminder: These rankings can be very volatile early in the year. Teams will make big moves based on what seems to be a big result. That will change as the season goes on, as it did with LSU a year ago when Clemson’s struggles continued. I try to dismiss my preseason rankings as quickly as possible, leaving them behind for good once everyone has played a significant opponent.Teams can “drop” after a win or “rise” after a loss early on. Do not worry about that right now. It’s either due to a surprising performance by a team or, more likely, the result of what other teams did. If a team has only played a massively inferior opponent, they’ll be prone to being pushed around in the rankings if someone else played a team of note. It all works itself out by the end.Let’s overreact in this week’s edition of The Athletic 138.Along with LSU, Miami jumps for its 45-6 win over Stanford. A completely dominant win over another Power 4 opponent means something, for now. The next six teams remain in their preseason order. Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia and Texas played overwhelmed Group of 6 and Football Championship Subdivision opponents, so it’s hard to read much of anything into their big wins. Oregon struggled to put away Boise State, but that’s a Broncos team I had in my preseason top 25, so the win counts for something. Notre Dame pulled away from Wisconsin in the second half but struggled in the first. I didn’t see enough to change the order of any of these six teams, all of whom I still believe are title contenders.Ole Miss moves into the top 10 for its last-second win against another top-25 opponent in Louisville.Not much change here. Virginia slides up for its Week 0 beatdown of NC State, and UCLA makes a big leap into the top 25 for its impressive 45-24 win at Cal. Louisville and Boise State don’t move much after narrow losses to top-10 teams. Tennessee edges past Houston because the Cougars struggled a bit with Oregon State.Michigan and Western Michigan have to be back-to-back after that controversial Hail Mary win. If you refuse to recognize the Wolverines' win, flip the teams in your mind, but either way, Michigan deserves to drop pretty far after that showing. Baylor is an example of a team that can move up the rankings even in defeat with a performance that was better than I expected, after falling a few inches short of upsetting Auburn. We’ll see how both teams progress.Colorado moves way up to one spot ahead of Georgia Tech after blocking the final field goal for the road win over the Yellow Jackets. Memphis climbs thanks to its Week 0 win over UNLV.Bill Belichick’s North Carolina moves up for its Week 0 win against TCU. Clemson falls after that beatdown at LSU. Wisconsin only falls one spot after being competitive with Notre Dame for more than a half.Tulsa makes a big jump after a 24-10 win against Oklahoma State that wasn’t even as close as the score.A lot of movement here. Stanford moves “up” for its Week 0 win against Hawaii, though the blowout loss to Miami pushed the Cardinal back down. Washington State rises a bit after a competitive loss at Washington. USF drops quite a lot after an ugly Week 1 win against FIU.The second-most surprising result of the weekend might’ve been Nevada’s 49-14 win against Western Kentucky, and the Wolf Pack make a major jump from outside the top 100.But the most shocking win was, of course, UMass’ 37-21 victory at Rutgers, ending a 16-game losing streak and 23-game Football Bowl Subdivision losing streak. For that, the Minutemen rise to No. 100. It’s the first time since early in the 2025 season that UMass is not ranked last, and it’s the first time in 10 years of these rankings that UMass is inside the top 100. The Minutemen’s previous high was No. 102 late in the 2018 season. Congrats to UMass. I said in the preseason rankings that I hoped they’d find something to celebrate. I didn’t expect that search to end so quickly and significantly.There is some early carnage here, starting with Oklahoma State. Clearly, I was far too ahead of myself in starting the Cowboys in the top 25. My logic was that North Texas finished in the top 25 last year, and all the key pieces had moved to Stillwater. This clearly looks like a longer rebuild than expected, so the Cowboys are back into the 110s, close to where they finished last season. Their 12-game and 21-game FBS losing streaks are both the longest in the country.Western Kentucky drops for that blowout loss at Nevada. Bowling Green falls for its loss to FCS Tarleton State, though the Texans are a top FCS program. Northern Illinois drops after not recording a first down at Iowa until late in the third quarter against the Hawkeyes' third-string defense.Rutgers falls all the way to No. 136 for that blowout loss to UMass, which wasn’t as close as the 16-point final margin would indicate. This is the new lowest position for a Power 4 team in 10 years of these rankings. But the Scarlet Knights aren’t the bottom.Those spots belong to Utah State and Charlotte, which also lost to FCS teams. Utah State lost 29-17 to an Idaho State program that has one winning season in the last decade (but is improving). The new No. 138 is Charlotte, which lost 43-41 to The Citadel in triple overtime. The Citadel hasn’t had a winning season since 2016, went 4-8 last year and lost 42-14 to Wofford in Week 0. Charlotte has lost 11 straight games to FBS opponents.