The Southeastern Conference (SEC) might have shown a lot of weakness last week ; but, in week three, they showed both weakness and serious strength. Unfortunately for them, the strength came out against other teams in their conference. The new Associated Press Top 25 Poll and the new Coaches Top 25 Poll have both come out, and there has been a lot of movement on these lists with Alabama falling as LSU and Ole Miss have soared upward.
One of the biggest drops so far this season came from the Alabama Crimson Tide, who fell from second to twelfth in the AP Poll after their loss to Ole Miss. On the flip side of things, the Rebels jumped up from fifteen to tied for third with TCU.
USC also suffered a big drop in the new AP Poll, as they went from sixth to 19 with their 41-31 loss to the then unranked Stanford Cardinal. As ESPN recapped , Stanford’s Kevin Hogan was nearly flawless and it helped them jump all the way up to 21.
The Associated Press released their entire new Top 25 Poll on Sunday afternoon.
1. Ohio State 2. Michigan State 3. TCU 3. Ole Miss 5. Baylor 6. Notre Dame 7. Georgia 8. LSU 9. UCLA 10. Florida State 11. Clemson 12. Alabama 13. Oregon 14. Texas A&M 15. Oklahoma 16. Arizona 17. Northwestern 18. Utah 19. USC 20. Georgia Tech 21. Stanford 22. Wisconsin 22. BYU 24. Oklahoma State 25. Missouri
Over in the new Coaches Top 25 Poll, Alabama also dropped down to the number 12 spot, but Ole Miss only moved up to fifth. LSU moved up to number nine behind the strong running of Leonard Fournette and their decimation of Auburn, who dropped out of the AP Poll, but not the Coaches Poll.
The full Coaches Top 25 Poll was released earlier on Sunday.
1. Ohio State 2. TCU 3. Michigan State 4. Baylor 5. Ole Miss 6. Georgia 7. Florida State 8. Notre Dame 9. LSU 10. Clemson 11. UCLA 12. Alabama 13. Oregon 14. Oklahoma 15. Texas A&M 16. Arizona 17. Utah 18. USC 19. Northwestern 20. Georgia Tech 21. Wisconsin 22. Oklahoma State 23. Missouri 24. Stanford 25. Auburn
In the AP Top 25 Poll, the Ohio State Buckeyes received 40 first-place votes after hardly registering a victory over Northern Illinois. Michigan State ended up getting seven votes to have the Big 10 owning the top two spots in the poll for the first time since November of 2006.
Ole Miss received 11 first-place votes and the LSU Tigers received one first-place vote.
The new NCAA football rankings are out and the shakeups caused by huge losses and victories have the AP Top 25 Poll and Coaches Top 25 Poll both looking very different. Every single game counts and some of these losses are already making a huge impact. It’s going to be an interesting season.
[Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images]