Three takeaways from the Week 8 Associated Press poll
If there was ever an interesting weekend to follow the Associated Press poll, this was it. Four top-10 upsets meant that we had big-time movement in the top 25.
Four SEC teams are in the field now and all of them, except Alabama, had some noteworthy movement.
Here were my three takeaway points from the latest top 25.
1. Georgia is underrated
Yes, you read that right. The No. 3 team in college football is indeed underrated. How could I possibly say that? Well, now is the part in the story where I shamelessly plug an argument I already made on Saturday night.
So I won’t go that in depth with this, but I’ll just say this. Throw away preseason rankings. Throw away Heisman Trophy nominees. Throw away 2016 (that’s important).
Just look at pure résumés and it’s not close. Clearly, Georgia has had a better season than Penn State so far and deserves the No. 2 spot. Besides the fact that it has one more win, the Dawgs actually had a quality non-conference game and won it at Notre Dame. The Lions won at home to a 2-win Pitt team.
It doesn’t really matter yet, but Georgia’s 7-0 start is more impressive than Penn State’s 6-0 start. Plain and simple.
2. Auburn was hit HARD
Everyone was back on the Auburn bandwagon after a dominant start to SEC play. What happens when you blow a 20-point lead to an unranked team? Voters write you off. That was the message sent to Auburn after dropping 11 spots to No. 21.

Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
While Auburn was the highest-ranked of the 2-loss teams, perhaps I wasn’t ready for the Tigers to fall that hard. After all, LSU did move back into the top 25. The question many have is whether Auburn is now out of the College Football Playoff picture. For my money, it is. Others would argue that Auburn could still have three wins vs. top-10 teams in the final month.
Either way, it’s going to be awfully difficult for the Tigers to climb back into the elite after falling that far down.
3. Does the B1G win the conference supremacy argument?
That’s a good question. After all, here’s how the top 25 broke down for Power 5 conferences:
- B1G — 5
- SEC — 4
- ACC — 4
- Big 12 — 4
- Pac-12 — 4
Add in the fact that the B1G has three of the top six teams and you could make a fairly convincing argument that the B1G has the best conference right now.
But look a little closer and examine the non-conference strength of those five teams. Penn State beat a lousy Pitt team, Wisconsin won at BYU (yawn) and Michigan beat a 3-loss Florida team at a neutral site. Michigan State and Ohio State actually lost their big non-conference showdowns to Notre Dame and Oklahoma, respectively. Both of those were home games, too.
So is the B1G really deserving of being considered the power conference? In my opinion, the conference supremacy belt is still up for grabs.