1956 college football rankings

The 1956 college football rankings were an effort to rank the American football teams participating in the 1956 college football season. College football's governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), did not issue rankings or conduct a championship game or playoffs to determine a national champion. The most widely-reported rankings were published by two of the major news agencies based on polling conducted on a weekly basis during the season.

• The Associated Press (AP) conducted a weekly poll of sports writers throughout the country. This was known as the AP poll or the "writers poll".
• The United Press International (UPI) conducted a weekly poll of the nation's head football coaches. This was known as the UPI poll or the "coaches poll".

At the end of the regular season, Oklahoma was ranked No. 1 in both the AP and UPI polls. Oklahoma did not participate in a bowl game. Neither agency conducted polling after the bowl games.

Though not as widely reported as the AP and UPI polls, some newspapers also reported on a mathematical ranking system developed by Vanderbilt University professor Edward Litkenhous. These were known as the Litkenhous Ratings. Oklahoma was also ranked No. 1 in the Litkenhouse Ratings. Whereas the AP and UPI polls ranked the top 20 teams, Litkenhouse ranked every college football team, and his rankings from 1 to 100 are included below.