AP Top 25: Missouri Jumps 11 Spots, Florida Drops 8, and Pitt Enters Without Its Quarterback
The new AP Top 25 came out Sunday and the top five did not move an inch. Everything behind it did.
The top 10
Texas stays at No. 1 at 4-0 after an idle Saturday. Georgia is No. 2 at 5-0, Notre Dame No. 3 at 5-0, Miami No. 4 at 5-0 and Ohio State No. 5 at 4-1.
Then the shuffling starts. Alabama moved up to No. 6 at 5-0 and Indiana slid to No. 7 at 5-0, a straight swap. BYU holds at No. 8 at 4-0 after beating TCU 17-10. Ole Miss sits at No. 9 at 3-1 following an idle week, and LSU rounds out the top 10 at No. 10 with a 4-1 record.
The rest of the poll
Texas Tech is 11th, Utah 12th, Oregon 13th, Missouri 14th, Tennessee 15th, Florida 16th, Mississippi State 17th, Oklahoma State 18th, USC 19th, Iowa 20th, UCLA 21st, Houston 22nd, Boise State 23rd, SMU 24th and Pitt 25th.
Missouri and Florida traded places violently
Missouri climbed 11 spots from No. 25 to No. 14 after beating Florida 45-17 in Columbia. That is the week’s biggest jump and it was earned by a 28-point margin over a top-10 team.
Florida fell from No. 8 to No. 16, the week’s biggest drop. The Gators had risen from No. 21 to No. 8 seven days earlier by beating No. 4 Ole Miss 52-28. A ranking that moves 13 spots up and then eight spots down inside two weeks is the poll admitting it has no idea what Florida is.
Neither do we, and that is the point. Jon Sumrall’s first Florida team has beaten a top-five opponent by 24 and lost to a No. 25 team by 28 in consecutive games.
Iowa also slid, from No. 14 to No. 20, after losing 31-14 to Ohio State at Kinnick Stadium.
Pitt arrives at the worst possible moment
The Panthers entered the poll at No. 25 at 5-0 after a 35-33 win at Virginia Tech. They also lost quarterback Mason Heintschel for the season to a torn ACL in that same game, announced Saturday night.
So Pitt is ranked for the first time this season and has to play the rest of it with a backup. That is a cruel piece of timing.
Kentucky fell out after winning
The oddest line in the poll belongs to Kentucky, which was No. 24, beat South Carolina 35-34 in overtime after trailing 17-0, and dropped out entirely. The Wildcats finished with 160 points.
Winning an SEC road game in overtime and losing your ranking is a reminder that poll voters grade on style as much as results, whether they admit it or not. Kentucky is 4-1 and hosts No. 11 LSU next.
What we make of it
An unchanged top five through six weeks is unusual and probably accurate. Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami and Ohio State have separated themselves, and only Ohio State has a loss, a 24-23 trip to Texas.
The interesting fight is for the back half of the playoff field, and the SEC’s middle is making that impossible to project. Missouri, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi State occupy four of five spots from 14 to 17, and all four have beaten or lost to someone that makes no sense.
Alabama moving ahead of Indiana is the quiet story worth watching. Both are 5-0, and the voters just told you which undefeated team they trust.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
