It was a shakeup week on my ballot outside the unchanged top four of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Clemson as seven teams in my top 25 lost and two more were idle.
Notre Dame made the most important move, shooting up three spots to No. 5 and in position for a playoff berth when Alabama or Georgia suffers that the inevitable loss. It was also a fine weekend for idle Penn State, which moved up four spots to No. 6 after losses by LSU, Oklahoma and Auburn ahead of them on my ballot.
Oklahoma had trickled down out of my top four based on the result against Army and just not looking as dominating as others in the top 5 range, then the Red River Shootout loss to Texas happened. That puts the Sooners at 13. West Virginia, the last undefeated Big 12 team, did not wallop Kansas at home so I adjusted the Mountaineers down a spot to 7. Big games loom for West Virginia at Iowa State this week and at Texas on Nov. 3. Texas leaped nine spots to No. 16 after the big win in Big D.
LSU fell to No. 8 after its road loss at Florida, with Washington and UCF rounding out the top 10. Auburn dropped to 22 after falling at Mississippi State, which jumped back into my ballot at 21.
A quick sidebar on the depth of the SEC with a comparison of Auburn to Washington. The Tigers beat Washington 21-16 in Atlanta in the opener but have struggled to find their offense in the SEC and have lost at home to LSU and on the road at Mississippi State. Additionally, Auburn didn’t do a whole lot offensively against Arkansas. Meanwhile, Washington is looking like the class of the less deep Pac 12 but not in a particularly dominant fashion. So the Huskies reside in the top 10 for me while Auburn falls to 22 and looks for answers with Tennessee headed to the Plains.
The Nos. 11 to 15 spots were hard to sort out, but I decided Michigan was the best choice to start that grouping as the Wolverines have been getting stronger since their lone loss to Notre Dame. The Big Ten/Midwest had a big weekend, with Notre Dame, Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Cincinnati all on the rise. I did not have to drop No. 20 Michigan State off of my ballot because the Spartans weren’t on it. I don’t see the rationale that had Michigan State in the polls last week.
Moving out of my poll were Virginia Tech and Syracuse and moving in were Mississippi State and Appalachian State.
I’ve got Iowa, Texas A&M, South Florida, Washington State and Houston in my next five.
UCF obviously leads the Group of 5 bunch with Cincinnati next at No. 20.
1 Alabama
2 Georgia
3 Ohio State
4 Clemson
5 Notre Dame
6 Penn State
7 West Virginia
8 LSU
9 Washington
10 UCF
11 Michigan
12 Miami (Fla.)
13 Oklahoma
14 Wisconsin
15 Kentucky
16 Texas
17 Florida
18 Oregon
19 Colorado
20 Cincinnati
21 Mississippi State
22 Auburn
23 Stanford
24 North Carolina State
25 Appalachian State
Dropped out: Virginia Tech, Syracuse