College football rankings 2020, Week 16 AP Top 25: Florida, Miami plummet after bad losses

Florida and Miami are big losers in the new AP Top 25 as they fall out of the top 10 in the newest college football rankings.

We didn’t get to see Ohio State step on Michigan’s throat this weekend, but what looked to be a drab slate of games delivered in a way that only college football can.

Miami-North Carolina wasn’t all bad for the U. For instance, the Hurricanes held the UNC to a mere 224 yards passing. The bad news, of course, is they gave up 554 yards rushing. It’s a game that someone in a few years will cherry-pick to argue that the passing game is overhyped. What it really was was a game that showed off what North Carolina was supposed to be and how far Miami is from where they need to be.

Across the state, it turns out Florida is only about 57 yards away from where it should be. The Gators lost their final tune-up game before heading to Atlanta to lose to Alabama. Florida lost to a flailing LSU squad on its third quarterback, despite being favored by more than 20 points.

Ideally, when you’re going into the conference championship, you want to do it like Northwestern. The Wildcats put Illinois to bed in their final game before meeting Indiana Ohio State in the Big Ten title game. It’s hard to see that game going as well for Northwestern as Illinois, though. Elsewhere, Colorado and Wisconsin both lost, knocking them out of the Top 25 before you even realized they were in the Top 25.

This year has been an interesting experiment, demonstrating the weight of performance versus expectations. How many games must a team play for voters to believe that they are good enough to be among the Top 5 teams in the country? If you’re Ohio State (but not USC), it’s only six. If you are Coastal Carolina, it’s one less than infinity.

That isn’t to say that Coastal Carolina should be in the Top 5. They shouldn’t. And just about every team ahead of them, and quite a few behind them would win in a head-to-head matchup. But they should also be commended, better yet rewarded, for keeping infection rates low enough to play.

Here’s a look at this week’s Top 25.

Week 16 AP Top 25

1. Alabama
2. Notre Dame
3. Ohio State
4. Clemson
5. Texas A&M
6. Cincinnati
7. Indiana
8. Iowa State
9. Coastal Carolina
10. Georgia
11. Florida
12. Oklahoma
13. USC
14. BYU
15. Northwestern
16. North Carolina
17. Louisiana
18. Iowa
19. Miami
20. Tulsa
21. Texas
22. Liberty
23. Buffalo
24. N.C. State
25. San Jose State

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