Indiana achieved one more first to end its magical season full of firsts: The national champion Hoosiers are No. 1 in the final Associated Press Top 25 college football poll.
After beating Miami in the College Football Playoff title game to cap a 16-0 season that was unprecedented in the modern era, the Hoosiers on Tuesday became the third straight Big Ten team to finish on top of the rankings. Indiana’s championship and No. 1 final ranking followed those of fellow Big Ten teams Ohio State in 2024 and Michigan in 2023.
No. 2 Miami (13-3) moved up eight spots and ended with its highest ranking since the 2002 season, when it was second behind Ohio State. The 2003 Miami team had been the most recent to finish in the top 10.
Mississippi (13-2), which lost to Miami in the CFP semifinals after it beat Tulane and Georgia following coach Lane Kiffin's departure for LSU, was No. 3, its highest final ranking since 1962.
No. 4 Oregon (13-2) finished in the top 10 for a third straight year and No. 5 Ohio State was in the final top 10 for the 12th straight year. The Big Ten had three teams in the final top five for the second straight year.
Georgia (12-2), Texas Tech (12-2), Texas A&M (11-2), Alabama (11-4) and Notre Dame (10-2) rounded out the top 10.
The Bulldogs were No. 6 in the final poll for the second straight season and have ended in the top 10 every since since 2017. Texas Tech is a season-ending top-10 team for the first time. Texas A&M hadn't been ranked in a final poll season since Jimbo Fisher's 2020 team was No. 4. Alabama, which had ended every season between 2008-23 in the top 10, was back after slipping to No. 17 last year.
Notre Dame won 10 straight games following an 0-2 start, was left out of the playoff and opted to not play in a bowl game. The Irish slipped one spot and were ranked in a ninth straight final poll.
The Hoosiers were No. 20 in the preseason poll after going 11-2 in Curt Cignetti’s first season. They earned their then-highest ranking ever at No. 3 after they won at Oregon to go 6-0. They moved up to No. 2 the following week and stayed there for seven straight polls. Their 13-10 win over Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game pushed them to No. 1 heading into the playoff.
— No. 17 Iowa was ranked for the first time this season after winning three straight, including a bowl win over Vanderbilt. No. 22 Houston beat Baylor and LSU to end the season and was ranked for the first time in four polls. No. 25 TCU, which had been 18 spots out of the Top 25, was ranked for the first time since September after beating Houston, Cincinnati and USC.
— Arizona (21), Georgia Tech (24) and Missouri (25) dropped out.
— The SEC had seven teams in the final Top 25 for the second straight year. Last season was the first time that had happened since 2013.
— No. 15 Vanderbilt has its highest final ranking since the 1948 team was No. 12.
— No. 19 James Madison No. 24 North Texas are in the final poll for the first time.
SEC (7 ranked teams): No. 3 Mississippi, No. 6 Georgia, No. 8 Texas A&M, No. 9 Alabama, No. 12 Texas, No. 13 Oklahoma, No. 15 Vanderbilt.
Big Ten (6): No. 1 Indiana, No. 4 Oregon, No. 5 Ohio State, No. 17 Iowa, No. 20 Southern California, No. 21 Michigan.
Big 12 (5): No. 7 Texas Tech, No. 11 BYU, No. 14 Utah, No. 22 Houston, No. 25 TCU.
American (3): No. 18 Tulane, No. 23 Navy, No. 24 North Texas.
ACC (2): No. 2 Miami, No. 16 Virginia.
Independent (1): No. 10 Notre Dame.
Sun Belt (1): No. 19 James Madison.
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. celebrates after scoring with quarterback Carson Beck during the second half of the College Football Playoff national championship game against Indiana, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti holds the trophy after their win against Miami in the College Football Playoff national championship game, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
RAQQA, Syria (AP) — Guards from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces abandoned a camp Tuesday in northeast Syria housing thousands of people linked to the Islamic State group, and the Syrian military said that allowed the detainees to escape.
Hours later, the Syrian government announced a new four-day truce after a previous ceasefire between government forces and the SDF broke down. The two sides have been clashing for two weeks, amid a breakdown in negotiations over implementation of a deal to merge their forces together.
The al-Hol camp houses mainly women and children who are family members of IS members or accused of being otherwise affiliated with the group. Thousands of accused IS militants are separately housed in prisons in northeast Syria.
Syria's interior ministry accused the SDF of allowing the release of “a number of detainees from the ISIS militant (group) along with their families.” The AP could not independently confirm if detainees had escaped from the camps or how many.
The SDF subsequently confirmed that its guards had withdrawn from the camp, blaming “international indifference toward the issue of the ISIS terrorist organization and the failure of the international community to assume its responsibilities in addressing this serious matter,” using another abbreviation for IS. But the group did not say whether any detainees were able to escape.
It said its forces had redeployed “in the vicinity of cities in northern Syria that are facing increasing risks and threats” from government forces.
An official with the U.S. military’s Central Command who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly said, “We are aware of the reports and are closely monitoring the situation.”
The SDF and the government also have traded blame over the escape Monday of IS members from a prison in the northeastern town of Shaddadeh, amid the breakdown of a ceasefire deal reached between the two sides on Sunday.
The Syrian defense ministry in a statement said it is prepared to take over al-Hol camp and the prisons and accused the SDF of using them as “bargaining chips” to “sow chaos and destabilize the region.”
At its peak in 2019 when IS was defeated in Syria, some 73,000 people were living at al-Hol camp. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens.
Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced in northeastern Syria, told The Associated Press that the al-Hol currently has a population of about 24,000 of which Syrians make the largest group with about 14,500 followed by Iraqis, who are nearly 3,000.
He added that about 6,500 from other nationalities are held in the highly-secured section of the camp known as the annex as they are the most die-hard IS supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
Earlier Tuesday, Syria's interior ministry said that 120 Islamic State members had escaped Monday from the prison in Shaddadeh, amid clashes between government forces and the SDF. Security forces recaptured 81 of the escapees while pursuing the remaining fugitives, the statement said.
Also Tuesday, the SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of cutting off water supplies to the al-Aqtan prison near the city of Raqqa, which it called a “blatant violation of humanitarian standards.”
The SDF, the main U.S.-backed force that fought IS in Syria, controls more than a dozen prisons in the northeast where some 9,000 IS members have been held for years without trial.
IS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria two years later, but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
Under a deal announced Sunday, government forces were to take over control of the prisons from the SDF, but the transfer did not go smoothly. On Monday, Syrian government forces and SDF fighters clashed around two of the prisons.
The Syrian military announced Tuesday evening a new four-day ceasefire with Kurdish-led forces after a previous agreement fell through. There was no immediate statement from the SDF.
Elham Ahmad, a senior official with the Kurdish-led local administration in northeast Syria, told journalists Tuesday that the earlier ceasefire had fallen apart after SDF leader Mazloum Abdi requested a five-day grace period to implement the conditions and Syrian Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa refused.
She blamed the government for violating the agreement but called for a return to dialogue.
In response to a journalist's question regarding whether the SDF had requested help from Israel - which previously intervened in clashes between government forces and groups from the Druze religious minority last year - Ahmad said “certain figures” from Israel had communicated with the SDF. She added that the SDF is ready to accept support from any source available.
SDF officials have expressed disappointment at the failure of the U.S. to intervene on their behalf. The group was long the main U.S. partner in Syria in the fight against IS, but that has changed as the Trump administration has developed closer ties with al-Sharaa's government.
U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack in a statement Tuesday urged the SDF to move forward with integration into the new Syrian government and army and appeared to warn the Kurdish-led force that no help would be coming from Washington if it continued fighting.
“The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps,” he said in a statement. “Recent developments show the US actively facilitating this transition, rather than prolonging a separate SDF role."
Since toppling Bashar Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new leaders have struggled to assert their full authority over the war-torn country. An agreement was reached in March that would merge the SDF with Damascus, but it didn’t gain traction.
Earlier this month, clashes broke out in the city of Aleppo, followed by the government offensive that seized control of Deir el-Zour and Raqqa provinces, critical areas under the SDF that include oil and gas fields, river dams along the Euphrates and border crossings.
Al-Sharaa postponed a planned trip to Germany on Tuesday amid the ongoing tensions in northeast Syria.
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Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.
Protesters from the Kurdish community chant slogans during a protest to condemn Syrian government military operations against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria, outside the ESCWA headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Syrian government troops are seen at an abandoned checkpoint between government-controlled Raqqa and Hassakeh, controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in northeastern Syria, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
Tribal fighters pose for photographs with local children after Syrian government troops, supported by tribal forces, took control of Raqqa from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last Sunday at Al-Naeem roundabout in central Raqqa, northeastern Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Tribal fighters pose for photographs taken by onlookers after Syrian government troops, supported by allied tribal forces, took control of Raqqa from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last Sunday at Al-Naeem roundabout in central Raqqa, northeastern Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Soldiers of the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) deploy with armoured military vehicles to secure roads leading to Gweiran Prison which houses men accused of being an Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Hassakeh, northeastern Syria, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)
