AP Top 25 poll thoughts: Why I put Tennessee in my top 4 and didn't rank Notre Dame

What happens to college football rankings when hardly anybody looks good?

Alabama, Penn State and Oklahoma don’t drop in the AP Top 25 after lackluster performances, the expanded SEC ends up with six of the top seven and Notre Dame stays ranked after a historic upset.

Let’s dive into the AP poll after Week 2 and how it compares to my ballot.

1. Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for Notre Dame.

Yes, I was wrong about the Fighting Irish before and after Week 1, but new information has come in and I’m here to correct my mistakes. It can be hard to drop a team ranked fifth all the way off a ballot, but Notre Dame didn’t look anything like a Top 25 team in its shocking 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois. Though the Week 1 win against Texas A&M looked solid, perhaps the Aggies aren’t as good as anticipated either.

In two games, Notre Dame has scored 37 points, ranks 101st in yards yard play and became the only AP top-five team to ever lose to a school from the MAC. It should need to earn its spot back in the poll.

I figured the Irish would maintain a spot in the rankings, but I was surprised to find out that I was one of only five voters who left Notre Dame out entirely. And I was also mildly surprised that the Irish, at No. 18, are seven spots ahead of Northern Illinois, which entered the poll at No. 25. Head-to-head isn’t everything, but in Week 2 … it kind of is?

2. NIU’s upset was the first time an unranked team beat a top-five opponent since South Carolina upset Tennessee on Nov. 19, 2022. The 2023 season featured just five wins by unranked teams over top-10 opponents, none of which were in the top five. This season already has three — though with an asterisk because of then-No. 10 Florida State’s two losses to Boston College and Georgia Tech before the first in-season poll came out.

Oddly enough, the last two wins by MAC teams against the AP top 10 were on the same Saturday: Sept. 20, 2003. On that day, Marshall beat No. 6 Kansas State and Toledo beat No. 9 Pitt — and Northern Illinois upset No. 21 Alabama.

3. Amid the Notre Dame negativity, I offer some hope. Of the four previous AP top-10 teams to lose to a team from the MAC, two went on to finish ranked: 1986 LSU lost to Miami (OH) but finished 10th, and 2003 Kansas State lost to Marshall but finished 14th. There’s also 1995 Northwestern, which opened its season with a shocking upset of No. 9 Notre Dame, lost to Miami (OH) the next week and still went on a historic run to the Rose Bowl.

Notre Dame also started 0-2 with losses to Ohio State and Marshall just two years ago and recovered enough to finish 9-4 with a No. 18 ranking. It’s not the end of the season in that every goal is still possible in the 12-team College Football Playoff era. The Irish’s Playoff odds plummeted to 34 percent in The Athletic’s model, but that’s still the 14th-highest chance. Then again, the performance against NIU exposed potentially fatal flaws that make more Irish losses feel inevitable and a fall off the ballot deserved.

4. In a week in which a lot of ranked teams didn’t play well, I’ll echo my colleague Stewart Mandel in writing that three teams have separated themselves as potentially great: Georgia, Texas and Ohio State belong in their own tier.

Texas inched ahead of Ohio State in the poll, but I wouldn’t argue with any order for the top three. I had Ohio State, Texas and Georgia as my preseason top three and have reversed them based on how the season has played out thus far. Georgia dominated Clemson from start to finish, Texas impressively crushed Michigan in Ann Arbor and Ohio State confirmed what we already knew in that it has a huge talent advantage over Akron and Western Michigan.

Though perhaps top-10 teams beating the MAC with ease shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Tennessee outgained NC State 460-143 on Saturday. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

5. Who’s next? That’s a more complicated question.

Alabama obliterated WKU in Week 1 but was under an upset threat from USF most of Saturday despite the 42-16 final score. Though the Crimson Tide stayed at No. 4 in the poll, I skeptically dropped them to eighth.

I instead chose to reward three teams that have played the best and achieved substantive results: Tennessee, Miami and USC.

I came into the season thinking NC State was a sleeper threat to win the ACC, and though that was misguided, credit to Tennessee for crushing the Wolfpack 51-10 in Charlotte. The Vols have a potential breakout star quarterback in Nico Iamaleava and the makings of a Playoff-caliber defense. There’s plenty more to prove with an SEC schedule that includes Oklahoma and Alabama, but why not the Vols for a top-five spot now? They’ve looked the part, and our model now has them at a 55 percent chance to make the Playoff.

Miami and USC notched key nonconference wins in Week 1 — the Canes crushed Florida, the Trojans edged LSU — and easily won against overmatched opponents in Week 2. With Cam Ward and Miller Moss, respectively, at quarterback, they should both hang around the Playoff conversation all season. They’re in the top six on my ballot.

6. Four new teams entered the poll this week: Iowa State, Nebraska, Boston College and Northern Illinois. Three ended long Top 25 droughts:

• No. 23 Nebraska, which beat Colorado 28-10, is ranked for the first time since Sept. 3, 2019. It’s a nice step for a program that was once the AP poll’s most consistent resident. Per College Poll Archive, Nebraska owns the longest AP ranking streak at 348 consecutive poll appearances from 1981 to 2002.

• No. 24 Boston College had the fourth-longest active poll drought in the Power 4, dating to Nov. 11, 2018. Easy wins against Florida State and Duquesne are a nice start for Bill O’Brien at a program that hasn’t finished ranked since a run of four consecutive final poll appearances from 2004-07.

• No. 25 Northern Illinois was last ranked on Dec. 8, 2013, amid its run of 57 wins in five seasons from 2010-14. Saturday marked its seventh Top 25 win but first against a team ranked in the top 10.

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7. I voted for Boston College and NIU, but I was one of 32 voters who did not place Nebraska on my ballot. I understand the case for the Huskers, with renewed optimism thanks to a stellar defense and the arrival of five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola, but would they be ranked after the win against Colorado if Deion Sanders weren’t the head coach? The extra attention on the Buffaloes and national spotlight for the game likely pushed the Huskers over the top, even though, in reality, Colorado is coming off a 4-8 season and may have to scrap to get to a bowl game.

That said, Nebraska has a good chance to appear on my ballot soon. Facing a backloaded schedule, the Huskers have a chance to be 7-0 going to Ohio State on Oct. 26.

8. It’s easy to look at the rankings and wonder why No. 4 Alabama (struggled with USF), No. 8 Penn State (struggled with Bowling Green) and No. 15 Oklahoma (struggled with Houston) didn’t move, but that’s largely a result of what happened elsewhere. In some weeks, all three teams might have dropped multiple spots. This week, a lot of other ranked teams struggled or lost, and thus those three stayed put by default — even if I did drop the Nittany Lions four spots, the Crimson Tide four spots and the Sooners two spots myself.

One team I did hold steady is Oregon, which fell after a close win against Idaho in Week 1 and won a thriller against Boise State in Week 2. I ranked Boise State in the preseason and still have it ranked now, so I didn’t feel a need to dock the Ducks this week.

9. The AP Top 25 features eight SEC teams, six of which are ranked in the top seven. If the Playoff were based on this week’s AP poll, all four first-round games would be hosted by SEC teams. A bracket based on my ballot would look a tad different, with games hosted by Texas and Tennessee from the SEC and USC and Oregon from the Big Ten.

10. Alabama staying at No. 4 into its trip to Wisconsin means it will be the first AP top-five team not named Ohio State to visit Camp Randall Stadium since Michigan in 1999. Wisconsin hasn’t had a nonconference top-five visitor since a 51-3 loss to No. 3 Miami in 1989. This is only the second time a top-five SEC team is visiting a Big Ten stadium, joining No. 1 Alabama’s win at Penn State in 2011.

Wisconsin did have an in-state win against No. 5 LSU in 2016, but it was at Lambeau Field.

(Top photo: Brian Spurlock / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)