The new AP Top 25 landed Sunday and it did what a weekend with this much carnage demanded. Georgia is No. 1 at 6-0 with 66 first-place votes after winning 20-17 at Alabama. Texas, which woke up Saturday as the undefeated No. 1, is No. 7.
Three teams entered the poll, three dropped out, and the team that beat the No. 1 team is still unranked. Start there.
The Four Biggest Moves
Texas fell six spots to No. 7 at 4-1 after losing 27-24 to Oklahoma on Tate Sandell’s last-second field goal. That is a soft landing for a team that lost its unbeaten season and the top ranking in the same afternoon, and it reflects how much credit voters still extend to Arch Manning.
LSU took the real beating. The Tigers dropped 12 spots from No. 10 to No. 22 after losing 35-34 in overtime at Kentucky. UCLA climbed nine spots from No. 21 to No. 12 at 5-0 after winning 17-15 at Oregon, the biggest jump of any ranked team. Kentucky arrived at No. 15 from unranked at 5-1.
Wake Forest at No. 21 and Northwestern at No. 25 also entered. Pitt, Florida, and Oregon fell out, Oregon at 3-2 after the UCLA loss. Alabama lost at home and did not move at all, holding at No. 6.
Oklahoma Beat The No. 1 Team And Got 44 Votes
This is the oddity of the poll and the clearest statement voters made all week. Oklahoma knocked off undefeated Texas and received 44 points in the others-receiving-votes pile, behind Nebraska’s 65. It stayed outside the top 25 at 3-2 with a loss at Michigan and a 41-13 defeat at Georgia.
Voters are telling you they are grading the body of work rather than the headline, and they are right to. Oklahoma produced 238 total yards against Texas and scored two of its three touchdowns on a blocked punt and a pick-six. One enormous afternoon does not erase two losses in an era where resume depth decides the at-large spots.
Alabama is the other side of the same coin. A three-point home loss to the new No. 1 cost the Crimson Tide nothing, which is what happens when your only loss is to the best team on your schedule.
What It Means For The Playoff
The College Football Playoff selection committee has not released a ranking yet. Its first top 25 does not arrive until November, and it has disagreed with the writers plenty of times before. Treat the AP poll as a mood reading, not a bracket.
The shape of the race is still clear. Eight unbeaten teams sit inside the top 12: Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami, Indiana, BYU, Texas Tech, Utah, and UCLA. Behind them, Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky all carry one loss, which means the SEC is about to spend six weeks eliminating itself from its own at-large claims.
Georgia’s path is the cleanest in the sport. The Bulldogs have already beaten Alabama in Tuscaloosa and buried Oklahoma 41-13 at home. Nobody else in the top five owns two wins that good. Finish unbeaten and the committee will not have to think hard about the top seed.
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.