New CBS Sports Rankings Show Ole Miss Among Power Four’s Best Programs

CBS Sports rolled out a new project this week, ranking all 68 Power Four schools based on how they performed across six major sports during the 2025-26 academic year.

It’s a broad look at overall athletic success, and Ole Miss landed just outside the top 10.

The formula leans heavily on postseason results. Seventy percent of each sport’s score comes from what teams did after the regular season and it focuses on football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball.

That’s a solid group of sports, but it’s also where the subjectivity creeps in. Why volleyball and not track and field? Why not soccer?

Once you start picking and choosing, you’re always going to leave out something that matters to somebody.

That’s why it’s worth taking these rankings with a grain of salt.

Ole Miss finished 34th in the Learfield Director’s Cup, which includes far more sports and puts more weight on championships. And if this CBS formula included golf or rifle (two sports where Ole Miss had strong seasons) the Rebels would almost certainly climb a few spots.

None of that means the rankings are wrong. They’re fine. They’re based on statistics, postseason results and a scoring system that at least tries to make sense of a very big picture.

But they’re also summer content. They fill the gap between the end of the academic year and the start of football season. They give fans something to talk about without needing to treat it like a referendum on the entire athletic department.

If your school is at the top of the list, enjoy it. Celebrate it like another banner year.

If your school is somewhere in the middle, or just outside the top 10 like Ole Miss, it’s not worth losing sleep over. These things are fun, not foundational.

And in a few weeks, everyone will be talking about actual games again.

CBS Sports All-Around Athletic Program Rankings

1. Texas (66.73)
2. Alabama (53.27)
3. Michigan (50.09)
4. Texas A&M (49.80)
5. Nebraska (49.58)
6. UCLA (49.24)
7. Oklahoma (48.73)
8. Georgia (47.97)
9. Tennessee (45.88)
10. Miami (45.86)
11. Texas Tech (45.38)
12. Ole Miss (42.84)
13. TCU (42.03)
14. North Carolina (41.96)
15. Kentucky (41.43)
16. Louisville (41.41)
17. Duke (40.93)
18. Oregon (39.92)
19. Indiana (39.75)
20. Arizona State (39.46)
21. Virginia (38.68)
22. USC (38.30)
23. Iowa State (37.38)
24. Arizona (36.73)
25. Kansas (35.22)
26. SMU (34.72)
27. Florida (34.67)
28. Wisconsin (33.94)
29. Vanderbilt (33.52)
30. Iowa (32.56)
31. Illinois (32.50)
32. West Virginia (32.42)
33. Mississippi State (31.93)
34. Ohio State (31.42)
35. Oklahoma State (31.42)
36. Purdue (31.29)
37. LSU (31.08)
38. Minnesota (31.05)
39. Arkansas (30.48)
40. NC State (29.21)
41. Clemson (29.02)
42. Georgia Tech (28.92)
43. Stanford (27.41)
44. BYU (27.40)
45. Pitt (27.26)
46. UCF (26.76)
47. Notre Dame (26.63)
48. Washington (26.20)
49. South Carolina (25.63)
50. Colorado (25.24)
51. Virginia Tech (25.02)
52. Michigan State (24.98)
53. Florida State (24.62)
54. Baylor (23.99)
55. Wake Forest (23.87)
56. Houston (23.59)
57. Kansas State (22.26)
58. Cincinnati (21.77)
59. Missouri (21.21)
60. Auburn (21.06)
61. Penn State (20.98)
62. Utah (20.77)
63. Syracuse (18.21)
64. Cal (17.17)
65. Northwestern (17.16)
66. Maryland (16.50)
67. Rutgers (12.51)
68. Boston College (10.22)