The AP top 25 poll is full of maddening contradictions even under normal circumstances; you try ranking the 25 best teams in the country, with just a few hours' worth of turnaround, all while catching up on a Saturday's worth of action you couldn't pay full attention to because you were too busy doing your day job. After a weekend like we just had, though — one in which seemingly the entire top 10 either falls in its face or nearly falls on its face — we're bound to see some head-scratching decisions from voters.
Sure enough, "head-scratching" feels ... almost too kind to describe the latest AP poll, which was released on Sunday afternoon. As you might expect, chaos reigns, with huge risers and fallers and a top 10 that looks drastically different from the one we had 48 hours ago. But certain rankings demand to be explained, starting with our new No. 1 team in the country.
- Miami Hurricanes (6-0)
- BYU Cougars (6-0)
- Ohio State Buckeyes (6-1)
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-1)
- Georgia Bulldogs (6-1)
- Indiana Hoosiers (6-1)
- Ole Miss Rebels (5-1)
- Texas Tech Red Raiders (6-0)
- UCLA Bruins (6-0)
- Utah Utes (6-0)
- Tennessee Volunteers (6-1)
- Kentucky Wildcats (6-1)
- Alabama Crimson Tide (5-2)
- Houston Cougars (6-1)
- Iowa Hawkeyes (5-1)
- USC Trojans (6-1)
- Wake Forest Demon Deacons (6-1)
- LSU Tigers (5-2)
- Texas Longhorns (4-2)
- Florida Gators (5-2)
- Boise State Broncos (5-1)
- Missouri Tigers (5-2)
- SMU Mustangs (5-1)
- Northwestern Wildcats (5-1)
- Arizona Wildcats (5-1)
What has Miami done to earn the No. 1 ranking?
I understand that someone has to rise to No. 1 after a weekend in which fully half the top 10 took a tumble. But man, does it feel strange for that someone to be a Miami team that was one extremely iffy holding call from potentially getting pushed to a third overtime by a extremely middling Florida State squad.
At this point, the Canes' resume consists of a road win against a much-better-than-expected Wake Forest in a game in which they were played pretty much even from a yards per play perspective. Beyond that, they've played Stanford, Central Michigan, Clemson and Florida State, nearly losing to the Noles. Sure, they're still undefeated, but so is BYU — and at least the Cougars just beat a top-10 team in Notre Dame. Heck, Ohio State and Ole Miss have one loss but have proven far more against top competition than Mario Cristobal's program has to date, including big ranked wins on Saturday.
Notre Dame doesn't deserve to be above Georgia, Ole Miss, other one-loss teams
Calm down, Notre Dame fans, I'm not calling the Irish frauds. They deserve credit for playing in Provo, and had that game gone for another few minutes (or even one more second, as should've been put back on the clock), they likely would've gotten out of there with an impressive win over a physical BYU squad.
At this point, though, that's ... pretty much the entirety of their resume. Wins over Wisconsin, Rice, Michigan State, Purdue, North Carolina and Stanford hardly move the needle, and hardly feel worthy of a top-four ranking. Georgia suffered a bad loss on Saturday, but they also won their road test at Alabama. Ole Miss, too, has solid wins over LSU and Missouri. It still feels like we're getting Marcus Freeman's team a lot of benefit of the doubt here.
Top-15 Iowa feels *extremely* rich
We see you, Hawkeyes. Admittedly, this was a very good time to be sitting at home on your bye week. But don't think that you can keep flying under the radar all the way into the College Football Playoff. After all, we saw what happened the one (1) time you took the field against a top-25 opponent; you got doubled up in total yardage by Ohio State.
Wins over Michigan and Washington are much, much less impressive than expected at the beginning of the year. They technically have one loss, so there's only so far they can fall, but why wouldn't one-loss Wake Forest be ranked ahead of them at this point? Heck, why not two-loss LSU?
Why on Earth is Texas still ranked ahead of Florida?
I'm sorry, what are we doing here? Texas has two losses. Famously, one of those losses came at home to Florida, which also has two losses. Florida has a blowout win at home against Ole Miss. Texas has a miraculous win at home against Ohio State in which they trailed by three scores early in the fourth quarter.
And yet, there the Horns are, still somehow one spot ahead of the Gators. It would be scandalous if it weren't so funny. Does the Manning name loom that large? At what point will we adjust our priors with this Texas team? I'm not even arguing that Florida deserves to be higher than they are; clearly this is an uneven team in Jon Sumrall's first season. But the one thing I know is that they do deserve to be higher than the team they just beat in their own stadium.
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