AP Poll After Week 10 Shows How Far Ohio State and Oregon Have Fallen

The preseason AP poll in August had Ohio State at No. 1 and Oregon at No. 2, with Utah sitting 21st and UCLA nowhere in the top 25. After Week 10, Utah is No. 2, UCLA is No. 4, and the two preseason favorites are hanging on at 18th and 21st. Georgia is back at No. 1 with 53 of 70 first-place votes, its second stint at the top this season. The first lasted one week and ended with an Oct. 17 loss to Auburn. Utah received 12 first-place votes, and Notre Dame got five, while Miami became the fourth No. 1 team to lose this season, the most in one year since 2008. Indiana, which had the week off, was the only team in the AP poll that did not move. Put this week’s rankings next to the preseason top 10, and the drift is hard to miss.

The Preseason top two took a long fall

Ohio State dropped from No. 11 to No. 21 after a 41-28 home loss to Oregon, its second straight loss after falling to USC. The Buckeyes led that game 14-0 after the first quarter. They were No. 2 two weeks ago, and outside of the 2020 pandemic season, they have not been ranked this low since 2014. Oregon is back in the AP poll at No. 18 after five weeks away. Both teams are 6-3, a steep fall for the two teams that opened the season at Nos. 1 and 2. Texas A&M and Oklahoma started eighth and 10th and are now out of the rankings altogether. Texas A&M’s latest loss came 17-9 at South Carolina, a team that was unranked in August and now sits 20th. LSU opened 11th and fell to 24th after a 31-13 home loss to Alabama.

Utah made the biggest climb

Meanwhile, Utah has gone from 21st in the preseason to No. 2, its highest regular-season AP ranking in program history and its best spot since the final poll of the 2008 season. The 9-0 Utes moved up after a 28-20 win over rival BYU, with their defense intercepting BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier four times. BYU was No. 2 in the Oct. 18 poll, so Utah makes it two different Big 12 teams at No. 2 or higher in the same season. The league had not done that since 2015. BYU now sits 12th, two spots better than where it started. Tennessee jumped from No. 16 to No. 9 after a 34-6 win over Kentucky, its highest ranking in two years and 11 spots above where it opened. Houston has climbed from 23rd to 14th at 7-2, Iowa has moved from 22nd to 16th, and Alabama has gone from 13th to seventh. Texas Tech sits 10th at 8-1, two spots higher than it started, after a 53-48 win over West Virginia.

The AP Poll made room for seven new teams

Seven teams in this week’s top 25 were not ranked in the preseason, and UCLA leads that group by a wide margin. The Bruins are 9-0 for the first time since 1998, and their No. 4 ranking matches the program’s best since the 2001 team reached No. 4 after a 6-0 start. First-year UCLA coach Bob Chesney has the Bruins 6-0 in Big Ten play, and they broke a 17-17 fourth-quarter tie to beat Minnesota 34-20 on Saturday. Elsewhere, Wake Forest is 11th, Kentucky is 13th, Boise State is 17th, South Carolina is 20th, Arizona is 22nd, and New Mexico is 23rd. Michigan, Washington, Penn State, Louisville, and Missouri joined Texas A&M and Oklahoma on the way out. The SEC leads every conference with eight ranked teams, which fits the case that the SEC will put the most teams in the playoff. The Big Ten has six, the Big 12 has five and the ACC has three. Even so, the voters were not generous with every big win. Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami 31-24 and moved up one spot to No. 3. No top-five team coming off a win over a No. 1 had landed that low since Auburn moved from No. 4 to No. 3 after beating Alabama on the Kick Six in 2013.