Inspirational Thoughts of the Week:
Keep your hopes up, my friend
it’s easy to say
But if your hopes are gone
Just pretend you can make them again
look around
the grass is high
the fields are ripe
This is the spring of my life
The seasons change with the scenery
Tapestry weaving time
Won’t you stay and miss me?
look around
leaves are brown
And there’s a hazy shadow of winter in the sky
– “Hazy Shade of Winter” by Simon & Garfunkel (or The Bangles, depending on how old you are)
Here at the Bottom 10 headquarters, located behind the telephone bank that is 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 race to the exits amidst a shower of boos and middle fingers.
#down10 The selection committee is currently in session to determine the final 2025 rankings, which will be revealed on Wednesday morning. pic.twitter.com/WdIvj25gNW
– Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) 2 December 2025
Thanks to an unprecedented coaching carousel that was so lucrative we renamed it the Coaching Tilt-a-Whirl, the list of candidates for this year’s Bottom 10 selection committee grew faster than Brian Kelly’s attorneys billed billable hours. The final roster: Me, my father, Captain Morgan (aka my stepfather), Mike Gundy, current Northwest Oklahoma defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville and former Texas State Armadillos head coach Ed “Straight Arrow” Gennaro. As our vote began, we were joined by Sam Pittman, who drove up to our meeting place at a truck stop behind the Gaylord Texan, where the fancy-schmancy CFP committee had gathered, behind the wheel of a shoebox Winnebago destroyed by Skynyrd and towing a pontoon boat emblazoned with the name “SS Yessir.”
Once again, we relied on our Bottom 10 FPI formula. No, not the ESPN Football Power Index, but the Fox Pass Index. Because everyone likes math.
Teams get one point for each win, minus one point for each loss, minus one point for each loss on their longest losing streak of the year, plus a minus-10 bonus if that longest losing streak is currently active. We subtract the number of points they surrendered in the season from the number of points they scored, subtract or add points based on their season turnover margin and their weakness of schedule (WOS) ranking. If a team fires its head coach, he gets a 50-point deduction, which Randy Edsall called the fired coach bonus.
Divide all of that by the number of games played, and you have your bottom 10 FPI score. Since these are hard numbers, the results are indisputable. And by hard numbers we mean that we have complicated the formula so badly that it is too hard to dispute it because it is not worth wasting the effort to do so.
With apologies to Tennessee wide receiver Deion Hardin, Mizzou running back Ahmad Hardy, Rice running back De’Andre Hardman Jr. and Steve Harvey, here are the final 2025 Bottom 10 rankings.
Victory: +0
Loss: -12
Longest losing streak: -12 (currently -10)
point difference: -330 (133 in favor, 463 against)
Turnover Margin: -7
Wow: -91
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -450
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -37.5
After playing their final game of the season on the Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, the Minutemen had their hay in the barn a full week earlier. 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 in an effort to exorcize their lower 10 demons.
Victory: +2
Loss: -10
Longest losing streak: -8
point difference: -241 (213 in favor, 454 against)
Turnover Margin: +2
Wow: -104
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -359
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -29.9
The Bearcats capped off a two-win campaign, but still finished second overall over the contenders, who only had one win. How did they accomplish this? The schedule’s weak strength and defense also resulted in scoring frequently.
Victory: +1
Loss: -11
Longest losing streak: -11 (currently -10)
point difference: -230 (170 in favor, 400 against)
Turnover Margin: -5
Wow: -30
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: -50
Total: -346
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -28.8
Many people in the Greater Stillwater area told me I don’t have the Cowboys, sorry, the Cowboys rank pretty low. When we did the FPI math, it supported those complainants with the same strength as it supported its own team.
Victory: +1
Loss: -11
Longest losing streak: -9 (currently -10)
point difference: -217 (237 in favor, 454 against)
Turnover Margin: -11
Wow: -66
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -323
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -26.9
Just as the arithmetic hurt OSU, it helped GSU, which jumped/fell from No. 2 to No. 4. It may 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. Lane Train
Marty said if I didn’t have Kiffin in the coveted fifth place again this week he would hit me over the head with a turkey leg. He couldn’t eat dinner with his family on Thanksgiving because he had to go to Oxford and hold the microphone instead.
Victory: +2
Loss: -10
Longest losing streak: -6 (currently -10)
point difference: -148 (222 in favor, 370 against)
Turnover Margin: -4
Wow: -90
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: -50
Total: -316
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -26.3
Easily, the most vocal was “How come we can’t be ranked?” The #Bottom10lobbying mob of 2025 was Rams Nation. And when we did the math, they were proven right as Colorado State jumped off the waitlist almost like a ram off a cliff into the valley of the top/bottom five. Now they’ve hired professional Bottom 10 relocation specialist Jim Mora, who completely ruined the Bottom 10 version of Chiefs vs. Eagles, UMs vs. U-Can, by inexplicably turning the Huskies into winners.
Victory: +1
Loss: -11
Longest losing streak: -9 (currently -10)
point difference: -264 (172 in favor, 436 against)
Turnover Margin: -8
Wow: -70
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -271
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -22.5833333
Niners executives reached out to the Bottom 10 Committee to see if maybe they could get 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 rules of natural numerical law would not allow us to add “cool points” to something called the “Fox Pass Index.” Speaking of math, Charlotte is also now part of the bottom 10 FPI, a numerical tie! With whom … ?
Victory: +2
Loss: -10
Longest losing streak: -7
point difference: -135 (218 in favor, 353 against)
Turnover Margin: -11
Wow: -60
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: -50
Total: -271
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -22.5833333
It should come as no surprise that the Beavers would be in a bit of a bind here after spending their entire season stuck in a bizarre bottom 10 vortex. They won through a common rival, Appalachian State, in a tiebreaker with Charlotte. The Niners lost to the Mountaineers 34–11 at home, while the Bees lost by only four points in Boone. Oregon State, one of a pair of 2Pac Conference members, had already defeated their only league affiliate, Washington State, in Week 10, but then immediately lost to Sam Houston. The Beavers then had to beat Wazoo again to leave these rankings behind for good, but they lost 32–8. They will no longer hibernate like all otters, but will be packed into a mud lodge with other otters, shivering and seeing who has to swim under the ice to find food. In related news, here’s how we spent this week at the Bottom 10 Selection Committee. We sent Mike Gundy out to get food because his haircut totally looks like a beaver.
Victory: +2
Loss: -10
Longest losing streak: -5 (currently -10)
point difference: -85 (280 for, 365 against)
Turnover Margin: -12
Wow: -109
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -229
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -19.1
Miners representatives crashed our committee meeting to remind us that although they understood they had to be ranked, no matter what the math said, they had to be ranked above/below Sam Houston because they beat the Bearcats 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 pickaxe to free the UTEP conversion van, whereupon it crashed into the trailer carrying Pittman’s pontoon boat.
Victory: +2
Loss: -10
Longest losing streak: -10
point difference: -88 (305 in favor, 393 against)
Turnover Margin: -9
Wow: -54
Bonus for Randy Edsall fired from coach: N/A
Total: -169
games played: 12
Final Bottom 10 Fox Pass Index: -14.08
The Golden Beagles were in the bottom 10 peloton by the finish line, which was like the scene in Oklahoma a few weeks ago when the Sooners were lost in the smoke of their stadium entrance and collapsed on top of each other, piled up like firewood for the winter. In the end, Arkansas and Pur-Ko didn’t get much of a boost in the Power 4 WoS, while Muddled Tennessee and No-Wada both had the audacity to win two of their final three games, passing the Raise Hell Prize Dale 3-win mark and falling out of the running. We started doing FPI math on some other teams, but when our Texas Instruments calculator ran out of batteries, Coach Pittman, relieved to see his former Hogs miss the final cut, announced, “I’ll go to the store, but not to buy batteries. To buy beer.” Meeting adjourned.
waiting list: Arkansas Fightin’ Former Petrino, No-wada, San No-say State, Pur-don’t, Muddled Tennessee State, Northern Il-ugh-noise, ULM (pronounced “uhlm”), conference tiebreakers that require slide rules.
