The first three weeks of college football haven’t completely separated the contenders from the pretenders, but it’s given us insight into which offenses and defenses have the most firepower in 2025. The Oregon Ducks happen to have both.
The Week 4 AP Top 25 features the Ducks at No. 6, trailing Ohio State, Penn State, LSU, Miami and Georgia in that order. But Oregon has the early claim to the most complete team in college football. The advanced stats prove that.
Points per play is an interesting measure to explore, breaking down pure scoring into something more meaningful. It lets us see how effective a particular team is on offense and defense when it comes to scoring and defending. Efficient and explosive offenses need fewer plays to score points. Dominant defenses don’t give opposing offenses those opportunities.
Let’s look at the top teams in points per play on both offense and defense.
College football rankings ordered by points per play
Note: These rankings only include teams in the AP Top 25. They are not the raw Points Per Play rankings, via TeamRankings.com.
| Team | PPP | Actual AP Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Oregon | 0.873 | 6 |
| 1. USC | 0.873 | 25 |
| 3. Texas Tech | 0.673 | 17 |
| 4. Alabama | 0.650 | 14 |
| 5. Michigan | 0.632 | 21 |
| 6. Vanderbilt | 0.630 | 20 |
| 7. Tennessee | 0.619 | 15 |
| 8. Texas A&M | 0.608 | 10 |
| 9. Ole Miss | 0.601 | 13 |
| 10. Illinois | 0.585 | 9 |
| 11. Penn St. | 0.580 | 2 |
| 12. Miami | 0.547 | 4 |
| 13. Georgia | 0.539 | 5 |
| 13. Auburn | 0.539 | 22 |
| 15. Indiana | 0.532 | 19 |
| 16. Missouri | 0.528 | 23 |
| 17. Florida St. | 0.484 | 7 |
| 18. Notre Dame | 0.481 | 24 |
| 19. Utah | 0.446 | 16 |
| 20. Ohio St. | 0.432 | 1 |
| 21. Oklahoma | 0.420 | 11 |
| 22. Georgia Tech | 0.364 | 18 |
| 23. Texas | 0.336 | 8 |
| 24. Iowa St. | 0.330 | 12 |
| 25. LSU | 0.303 | 3 |
Unranked teams in the top 25 of points per play: North Texas, Arkansas, TCU, UNLV, Navy, Nebraska, Rutgers, Kansas, ODU, Fresno State
Oregon and USC are tied for the most points per play in college football heading into Week 4. Neither has faced a particularly grueling slate thus far. Oregon’s SOS ranks 99th in FPI while USC’s is 109th. Still, ranked teams like Iowa State, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Utah, Penn State and Texas Tech have faced similarly weak schedules and many of them haven’t had close to the same success.
Both the Ducks and Trojans faced questions at quarterback coming into this season. Dante Moore and Jayden Maiava both seem to have taken the steps they needed to. If they keep it up, watch out.
LSU’s schedule hasn’t been easy but sitting at the bottom of the current Top 25 in points per play should raise some eyebrows. That’s a Brian Kelly offense with Garrett Nussmeier, a first-round draft hopeful, at the helm.
Texas’ struggling offense can be attributed to Arch Manning’s rough start against a Top 15 schedule.
What about the defenses?
College football rankings ordered by allowed points per play
| Team | PPP Allowed | Actual AP Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Penn State | 0.051 | 2 |
| 2. Ohio St. | 0.085 | 1 |
| 3. Oregon | 0.126 | 6 |
| 4. Oklahoma | 0.139 | 11 |
| 4. LSU | 0.139 | 3 |
| 6. Utah | 0.143 | 16 |
| 7. Illinois | 0.151 | 9 |
| 8. Texas | 0.164 | 8 |
| 9. Auburn | 0.210 | 22 |
| 10. Texas Tech | 0.212 | 17 |
| 11. Vanderbilt | 0.213 | 20 |
| 12. Florida St. | 0.227 | 7 |
| 13. Indiana | 0.228 | 19 |
| 14. USC | 0.231 | 25 |
| 15. Michigan | 0.233 | 21 |
| 16. Iowa St. | 0.251 | 12 |
| 17. Alabama | 0.266 | 14 |
| 18. Miami | 0.275 | 4 |
| 19. Ole Miss | 0.316 | 13 |
| 20. Georgia Tech | 0.336 | 18 |
| 21. Georgia | 0.390 | 5 |
| 22. Tennessee | 0.393 | 15 |
| 23. Texas A&M | 0.406 | 10 |
| 24. Missouri | 0.456 | 23 |
| 25. Notre Dame | 0.489 | 24 |
Unranked teams: BYU, Maryland, UCF, Nebraska, Louisville, East Carolina, Arizona, Memphis, Wyoming, Cal, Houston
Surprise, surprise, Penn State and Ohio State have two of the best defenses in the country. And, hey look, it’s Oregon right behind them. They say defense wins championships and these three certainly have those chops.
Oklahoma and especially LSU haven’t set the world on fire offensively this season, but they’re getting the job done defensively. Brent Venables’ defense will make the Sooners a particularly interesting challenge if John Mateer can get that offense humming. And we’ve already seen the Tigers’ defense keep them in games. They wouldn’t be 3-0 otherwise.
It’s surprising to see Georgia so far down the list. Giving up 41 points to Tennessee has a lot to do with that number. They have formidable offenses coming up on the schedule, including Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss. We’ll have to see if those vulnerabilities show up then.
We need more than three weeks of data to know which of these teams are this good and which will be humbled by better competition. Still, the stage has been set.
