Week 9 is the final week of the 2018 college football season in which the Associated Press Top 25 is the poll of record. Starting Tuesday, the College Football Playoff selection committee will unveil its rankings and those rankings will take priority.
The AP voters, meanwhile, have very few shakeups to deal with in the top half of the poll. Of the top 11 teams, five were off (No. 1 Alabama, No. 4 LSU, No. 5 Michigan, No. 10 UCF, No. 11 Ohio State), four won (No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Notre Dame, No. 7 Georgia, No. 8 Oklahoma) and two lost (No. 6 Texas, No. 9 Florida).
The bottom 11, on the other hand, is a complete mess. Nine teams ranked in the Nos. 15-to-25 range lost on Saturday (No. 15 Washington, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 18 Iowa, No. 19 Oregon, No. 20 Wisconsin, No. 21 USF, No. 22 NC State, No. 24 Stanford, No. 25 App State).
The AP voters are likely to promote multiple from the “others receiving votes” category into the Week 10 rankings with so many losses in the bottom 11 of the poll in Week 9. Teams in “others receiving votes” to win on Saturday include Utah State, Fresno State, Virginia, Houston, Michigan State and Mississippi State.
At this point in the season one year ago, the voters managed to avoid ranking any three-loss teams. After Saturday, that would seem to be virtually impossible with four top-20 teams (No. 15 Washington, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 19 Oregon and No. 20 Wisconsin) suffering their third loss of the season.
Here are the results for the Week 9 AP Top 25:
- Alabama OFF
- Clemson def. FSU, 59-10
- Notre Dame def. Navy, 44-22
- LSU OFF
- Michigan OFF
- Texas lost to Oklahoma State, 38-35
- Georgia def. No. 9 Florida, 36-17
- Oklahoma def. Kansas State, 51-14
- Florida lost to No. 7 Georgia, 36-17
- UCF OFF
- Ohio State OFF
- Kentucky def. Missouri, 15-14
- West Virginia def. Baylor, 58-14
- Washington State def. No. 24 Stanford, 41-38
- Washington lost to Cal, 12-10
- Texas A&M lost to Mississippi State 28-13
- Penn State def. No. 18 Iowa, 30-24
- Iowa lost to No. 17 Penn State, 30-24
- Oregon lost to Arizona, 44-15
- Wisconsin lost to Northwestern, 31-17
- USF lost to Houston, 57-36
- NC State lost to Syracuse, 51-41
- Utah def. UCLA, 41-10
- Stanford lost to No. 14 Washington State, 41-38
- App State lost to Georgia Southern, 34-14
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
