Kentucky falls out of AP Top 25 despite road win at South Carolina
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The Associated Press poll rarely ceases to surprise college football fans, and the latest edition of the rankings certainly follows that trend.
The latest AP Top 25 in college football was released Sunday, and there’s one name missing that may have SEC fans irate.
Ranked at No. 24 in last week’s AP Poll, Kentucky took that shiny number to Columbia and rallied for a 35-34 overtime win over South Carolina to move to 4-1 on the season and 2-1 in SEC play.
But according to the pollsters, that close win was enough to slide Will Stein’s Wildcats out of the Top 25, as they were two votes behind Pittsburgh with 160 and thus were featured in the ‘Receiving Votes’ category.
According to research from Radar360, an SEC team dropping out of the rankings following a win is a rare occurrence, with it having been over 20 years since that last happened. The last instance came in 2022 when No. 25 Tennessee fell out of the rankings after an 18-10 road win at South Carolina.
While many scratch their heads at the change, Stein & Co. can easily rejoin the rankings by upending LSU next Saturday in Lexington.
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Parker is currently the sports editor for Gulf Coast Media in Foley, Alabama. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
