AP Top 25 college football, new poll: Ohio State, Miami fall after upsets; Boise in top 10
With the College Football Playoff pairings one week away from being finalized, Associated Press Top 25 poll voters voiced their opinions following upsets that will certainly impact the postseason.
Saturday saw two top-10 teams, No. 2 Ohio State (10-2, 7-2 Big Ten) and No. 8 Miami (10-2, 6-2 ACC), lose to unranked teams. The losses mean neither will play in their conference title games this Saturday, so the final impression the CFP committee, and the AP voting panel, has about the Buckeyes and Hurricanes is a pair of stunning defeats.
Michigan (7-5, 5-4 Big Ten) won 13-10 at Ohio State, while Syracuse (9-3, 5-3 ACC) rallied to beat Miami, 42-38.
Penn State and SMU are the beneficiaries of those results.
The Nittany Lions (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) moved up one spot to No. 3 as Ohio State fell five spots to No. 7. Penn State will play No. 1 Oregon (12-0, 9-0 Big Ten) for the league title on Saturday despite only playing two games, and splitting them, against ranked teams this season.
Texas (11-1, 7-1 SEC) moved up to No. 2 following its 17-7 win at No. 20 Texas A&M.
After moving up a spot to No. 8, SMU (11-1, 8-0 ACC) also gets to play for its league championship, but against Clemson rather than Miami after the Hurricanes wasted a 21-point lead and stumbled at the finish line. The Mustangs is now the ACC’s highest ranked team.
Miami’s loss coupled with Clemson (9-3) losing 17-14 at home to South Carolina (9-3) on Saturday means the ACC now has only one top-10 team and is in danger of having only one team in the CFP pairings.
Miami fell six spots to No. 14 while Clemson also fell six spots, landing at No. 18.
The other big winner from the upsets is Boise State (11-1, 7-0 Mountain West), which moved up a spot to No. 10.
South Carolina, on a six-game winning streak and pushing for an at-large CFP berth after its late rally to beat Clemson, moved up three spots to No. 13.
Texas A&M (8-4, 5-3 SEC) and Tulane (9-3, 7-1 American) both fell out of the poll. No. 25 Memphis (10-2, 6-2 American) moved in after winning 34-24 at Tulane.
No. 23 Syracuse also jumped in, joining league foes SMU, Miami and Clemson to give the ACC that tiny bit of solace with four teams in the poll.
Duke (9-3, 5-3 ACC) received its strongest support in the poll this season. Though the Blue Devils didn’t make the Top 25, they received 30 poll points and are third, behind Texas A&M and Louisville, among teams receiving votes but not making the poll.
This week’s AP Top 25 poll
| Rank | Team |
| 1 | Oregon |
| 2 | Texas |
| 3 | Penn State |
| 4 | Notre Dame |
| 5 | Georgia |
| 6 | Tennessee |
| 7 | Ohio State |
| 8 | SMU |
| 9 | Indiana |
| 10 | Boise State |
| 11 | Alabama |
| 12 | Arizona State |
| 13 | South Carolina |
| 14 | Miami |
| 15 | Mississippi |
| 16 | Iowa State |
| 17 | BYU |
| 18 | Clemson |
| 19 | UNLV |
| 20 | Colorado |
| 21 | Illinois |
| 22 | Missouri |
| 23 | Syracuse |
| 24 | Army |
| 25 | Memphis |
This story was originally published December 1, 2024 at 9:56 AM.