After two-plus months of complete, uncut college football insanity, we finally got a little bit of a breather in Week 11. Sure, Indiana delivered the catch of the year to hold off Penn State while Oregon very nearly fell at Iowa, but outside of a couple near-upsets in the Big Ten, it was a pretty ho-hum slate of results. Even the marquee game of the weekend, Texas Tech-BYU, got ugly thanks to a ferocious Red Raiders defense. ("Ferocious Red Raiders defense" still takes some getting used to.)
Of course, even when there isn't much drama on the field, there's plenty of drama off of it in this sport. With the release of a new AP top 25 poll on Sunday afternoon, we've got a fresh batch of grievances. And we can only hope that the rankings that really count, those of the College Football Playoff selection committee every Tuesday, won't follow suit.
AP Top 25 college football rankings for Week 12
- Ohio State Buckeyes
- Indiana Hoosiers
- Texas A&M Aggies
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- Georgia Bulldogs
- Ole Miss Rebels
- Oregon Ducks
- Texas Tech Red Raiders
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish
- Texas Longhorns
- Oklahoma Sooners
- BYU Cougars
- Vanderbilt Commodores
- Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
- Utah Utes
- Miami Hurricanes
- USC Trojans
- Michigan Wolverines
- Louisville Cardinals
- Virginia Cavaliers
- Tennessee Volunteers
- Cincinnati Bearcats
- Pittsburgh Panthers
- James Madison Dukes
- South Florida Bulls
Of course, we're at the time of year where the AP poll is far from the only game in town. The College Football Playoff selection committee released its first rankings of the season last week, deviating from the Associated Press voters in some meaningful ways. Some teams (Texas, Notre Dame) got a bit more love than expected, while others (like, say, the entire ACC) got snubbed.
What about this time around? We'll have to wait until Tuesday, Nov. 11, to find out, but here are some ways we're really hoping the committee decides to depart from what their AP colleagues laid out on Sunday.
AP Top 25 mistakes the College Football Playoff committee needs to correct
It's time for a new No. 1
This isn't much of a slight against Ohio State, an awesome team that deserves to be among the favorites to repeat as national champions when all is said and done. But right now, if you were just basing these rankings off of resumes and what each team had accomplished on the field in 2025, can you honestly tell me that the Buckeyes are worthy of being No. 1?
Once again, Ryan Day's team wasn't seriously threatened, cruising to a 34-10 win over Purdue. But once again, it was hardly an overwhelming performance against a clearly overmatched opponent, with just 24 points through three quarters and little in the way of a rushing attack or explosive plays. I'm not arguing for Ohio State to drop lower than No. 2 or No. 3, but given Indiana's win at Oregon and Texas A&M's rampage through the SEC, can we really consider the Buckeyes to be the most impressive team of this season so far? They've avoided close calls, but they also don't have an elite win to hang their hat on (all due respect to Week 1 Texas).
Put some respect on Texas Tech
Texas Tech ground previously undefeated, top-10 BYU into a fine paste in front of a national audience on Saturday afternoon. Their reward? Moving up exactly one spot, inexplicably still stuck behind an Oregon team that barely survived Iowa and seemingly no closer to breaking the SEC's stranglehold atop the one-loss pecking order.
How convinced are we exactly that Ole Miss has a better resume right now? Sure, their loss is more respectable, at Georgia against at Arizona State, but much of that gap begins to dissipate when you consider that Tech was down starting quarterback Behren Morton that day. The Red Raiders have two top-15 wins (at Utah and vs. BYU) to the Rebels' one (at Okahoma), and while Ole Miss has flirted with disaster against the likes of Kentucky, Washington State, Arkansas and LSU, every single one of Texas Tech's victories so far this season have come by at least two scores.
The reality is that this team is far, far closer to the country's elite than they are to the second tier, and only preconceived notions about their program and the Pac-12 are preventing the rankings from reflecting that reality.
Stop burying the Group of 6
The little guy was among the biggest losers in the first CFP rankings reveal on Tuesday, with not a single non-Power 4 team ranked in the committee's initial top 25. The latest AP poll added insult to injury: Despite chaos in the back-end of the top 25, including ugly losses from Louisville (at home to Cal) and Washington (at Wisconsin), it's still virtually impossible for teams from the American or Mountain West or Sun Belt to make serious headway.
What have teams like Pitt, Cincinnati, Tennessee and, for that matter, UVA done to deserve the benefit of the doubt? What makes us so sure that they're definitively better than South Florida, Memphis, Tulane and North Texas? Shouldn't we at least give those teams a shot after the Power 4 teams in front of them spit the bit and fumble opportunities to prove themselves? I'm not arguing for the AAC to be a two-bid league or anything like that, but at least some acknowledgment would be nice.
Then again, this is the same group that tried as hard as possible to avoid noticing any team that wasn't Boise State last season, so don't get your hopes up.