Ohio State No. 6, No. 10 Penn State and Oregon No. 14 returned Sunday to the Associated Press College Football Poll, a few weeks before they started playing, creating a Top 25 as this season.
In the most sensible part of the leaderboard this week, Clemson remained at No. 1 with 55 first-place votes, followed by Alabama at No. 2 with 3 first-place votes.
The rest of the standings were shaken through the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and Mid-American meetings that changed course and play fall football after it was first postponed due to COVID-19 issues.
None will start until the end of October at the latest, but AP has that all FBS groups that make plans to play in the fall will be eligible to be in the Top 25.
Most of the electorate has reintegrated the most popular groups from those late meetings into their rankings, but not everyone does. Some are trapped only with groups that are playing lately.
Further complicating the electorate’s task this week: two groups of the 10 most sensitive lost to unranked groups at home on Saturday. 3 Oklahoma took a big lead and fell to Kansas State. The sixth and defending LSU national champion disappointed through Mississippi State in coach Mike Leach’s debut with the Bulldogs.
“I write my survey by hand on the same notebook every week,” Matt Baker said of the Tampa Bay Times. “I’ve never met as many groups as I know today. It looks like something my 3-year-old son would have done, alone with a black pen instead of a pencil. “
Oklahoma slid to No. 18 and LSU fell to No. 20 Mississippi State jumped to No. 16.
Back at the top, Florida climbed two spots to No. 3, Georgia maintained No. 4 and Notre Dame took credit for the up disorders upon returning to No. 5 un played. As a reminder that this season is normal, Fighting Irish was inactive this weekend due to COVID-19 disorders and will play next week either.
Then came the Buckeyes, who won four first-place votes. Ohio State is loaded and a nearby No. 2 Clemson in the preseason survey.
However, 11 electorates had the Buckeyes on their ballots, and decided to qualify only for the groups that played.
“I really replaced my brain on it and made the decision to vote only for the groups playing. “Brett McMurphy said of Stadium. ” Once a team has played a game, I will. Some of those 0-0 groups are notoriously larger (in role anyway) than the groups I’ve ranked, however, until they play a game, I don’t rank them. At the end of the year, I will rank the 25 most sensitive groups, without prejudice, whether they have played 7, 8 or 10 games.
Others have made some adjustments.
“My justification, as it might be, was that I had voted for SEC groups the last few weeks before they played,” Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News said. “To be consistent, I had to vote for the groups at next month’s meetings. Having said that, most of those schools are some of what I had in preseason surveys, just because other groups have vital paintings now.
Not all of the electorate struggled with this week’s election.
“Honestly, it’s not too hard, ” said Nathan Baird of Cleveland. com. “I referred to my pre-season studies as a reference, but that’s already something, as I voted for SEC groups in recent weeks. of the groups above, especially at the back of those surveys, irrelevant. “
However, it is unlikely to be easier.
No Power Five team has played more than 3 games so far, however, during the time Ohio State is scheduled to play its first game, Clemson would possibly have played five times.
VOTING POINTS
Where did the rest of Big Ten and Pac-12 go back in the survey from where they were in the preseason?
– Penn State No. 10 has lost 3 spots in his No. 7.
– Oregon No. 14 had been No. nine in preseason.
– Wisconsin No. 19 No. 12 in the preseason.
– Michigan No. 23 No. 16 in pre-season.
Southern California (preseason No. 17), Minnesota (preseason No. 19), Utah (preseason No. 22) and Iowa (preseason No. 24) returned.
UP AND OUT
No wonder, however, there’s a lot of movement in the survey. Clemson, Alabama and Georgia were the only groups to maintain their places last week.
The only big step forward for groups ranked in the past was Miami, which climbed 4 spots to eighth.
The Army, Kentucky and Louisville lost their games to other qualifiers and escaped from the Top 25, helping them lose area to reinstate Big Ten and Pac-12Array.
Louisiana-Lafayette and Virginia Tech were excluded from qualifying after winning on Saturday, and Marshall drove without playing.
Conference
SEC – (numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, 13, 16, 20, 21).
VAC – five (No. 1, five, 8, 12, 24).
Ten large – (numbers 6, 10, 19, 23).
12 large – (No. 9, 17, 18).
American – (No. 11, 15, 25).
Pac-12-1 (No. 14).
Independent – 1 (No. 22).
CLASS VS CLASS
Lol thirteen Texas A
No. 7 Auburn at No. 4 Georgia. The Bulldogs had their own offensive disorders in the inaugural game and Auburn is Arkansas.
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Follow Ralph D. Russo on https://twitter. com/ralphDrussoAP and pay attention to http://www. westwoodonepodcasts. com/pods/ap-top-25-college-football-podcast/
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More advanced school football: https://apnews. com/Collegefootball and https://twitter. com/AP_Top25