AP college football poll (9/27): Oklahoma plummets after loss; SMU, Baylor still unranked - The Dallas Morning News

A wild weekend of college football forced a shakeup in the new AP Top 25 poll.

Highly-ranked schools like Oklahoma and LSU suffered their first losses of the year. Texas and Texas A&M, schools comfortably within to Top 25, also experienced some close calls on Saturday. And schools on the outside looking in, like Baylor and SMU, continued to make their cases for consideration.

No. 6 Ohio State, No. 10 Penn State and No. 14 Oregon also returned to The Associated Press college football poll on Sunday, weeks before they start playing, creating a Top 25 as unusual as this season.

At the top of the rankings this week, Clemson remained No. 1 with 55 first-place votes, followed by Alabama at No. 2 with three first-place votes.

The rest of the rankings was rattled by the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and Mid-American conferences reversing course and deciding to play fall football after initially postponing because of COVID-19 concerns.

None will kick off until late October at the earliest, but the AP decided all FBS teams planning to play in the fall would be eligible for inclusion in the Top 25.

Most voters put the most highly regarded teams from those late-arriving conferences back into their rankings, but not all did. A few stuck with only teams currently playing.

Further complicating voters' task this week: Two top-10 teams lost to unranked teams at home Saturday. No. 3 Oklahoma blew a big lead and fell to Kansas State. No. 6 and defending national champion LSU was upset by Mississippi State in coach Mike Leach’s debut with the Bulldogs.

Oklahoma slipped to No. 18 and LSU dropped to No. 20. Mississippi State jumped in at No. 16.

Back at the top, Florida moved up two spots to No. 3, Georgia held on at No. 4 and Notre Dame benefitted from the upsets by moving up to No. 5 without playing. As a reminder that this season is anything but normal, the Fighting Irish were idle this weekend because of COVID-19 issues and won’t play next week either.

Then came the Buckeyes, who received four first-place votes. Ohio State is loaded and was a close No. 2 to Clemson in the preseason poll.

Still, 11 voters did not have the Buckeyes on their ballots, deciding to rank only the teams that have played.

“I actually changed my opinion on this and decided to only vote for teams that have played.” said Brett McMurphy of Stadium. “Once a team has played a game I will consider them. Some of these 0-0 teams are obviously better (on paper anyway) than the teams I ranked, but until they play a game I won’t rank them. At the end of the year, I will rank the best 25 teams — with no bias whether they played 7, 8 or 10 games.”

Others jumped right in with some adjustments.

“My rationale, such as it may be, was that I had voted for SEC teams the past few weeks before they played,” said Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News. “To be consistent, had to vote for teams in the conferences starting next month. That said, most of those schools are down somewhat from where I had them in the preseason polls, simply because other teams have a body of work now.”

No Power Five team has played more than three games so far, but by the time Ohio State is scheduled to play its first game, Clemson might have played five times.

Here’s a look at the full AP Top 25 this week:

AP Top 25

1. Clemson (2-0), Last week: 1

2. Alabama (1-0), Last week: 2

3. Florida (1-0), Last week: 5

4. Georgia (1-0), Last week: 4

5. Notre Dame (2-0), Last week: 7

6. Ohio State (0-0), Last week: NR

7. Auburn (1-0), Last week: 8

8. Miami (3-0), Last week: 12

9. Texas (2-0), Last week: 8

10. Penn State (0-0), Last week: NR

11. UCF (2-0), Last week: 13

12. North Carolina (1-0), Last week: 11

13. Texas A&M (1-0), Last week: 10

14. Oregon (0-0), Last week: NR

15. Cincinnati (2-0), Last week: 14

16. Mississippi State (1-0), Last week: NR

17. Oklahoma State (2-0), Last week: 15

18. Oklahoma (1-1), Last week: 3

19. Wisconsin (0-0), Last week: NR

20. LSU (0-1), Last week: 6

21. Tennessee (1-0), Last week: 16

22. BYU (2-0), Last week: 18

23. Michigan (0-0), Last week: NR

24. Pittsburgh (3-0), Last week: 21

25. Memphis (1-0), Last week: 17

Others receiving votes: Virginia Tech 195, Louisiana-Lafayette 126, Minnesota 110, USC 104, Kansas State 60, SMU 37, Marshall 31, Baylor 22, Iowa 16, Utah 14, Virginia 12, Arkansas State 11, UAB 5, Washington 4, Kentucky 4, Louisville 4, Army 3

Chuck Carlton’s Top 25

1. Clemson

2. Alabama

3. Ohio State

4. Florida

5. Georgia

6. Notre Dame

7. Auburn

8. Miami

9. Texas

10. Texas A&M

11. Penn State

12. UCF

13. Oregon

14. Wisconsin

15. Mississippi State

16. North Carolina

17. Cincinnati

18. Oklahoma State

19. Oklahoma

20. Michigan

21. Tennessee

22. LSU

23. BYU

24. Pittsburgh

25. Louisiana

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Find more Colleges stories from The Dallas Morning News here.

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