The top five spots on my weekly Associated Press Top 25 ballot are pretty easy: Georgia, Texas, Ohio State, Mississippi and Alabama. We can quibble slightly with the order, but that’s Tier 1.
After that, I don’t feel confident in much.
Oregon is sixth after a last-second win over Boise State. The Broncos are one of the nation’s top mid-major teams, and Ashton Jeanty would probably get my Heisman Trophy vote through two weeks. That means I’m not going to punish the Ducks for beating them, even though their performances concern me.
Tennessee comes next, jumping from eight spots to No. 7 after blowing out North Carolina State. The only ding I can give the Volunteers is their strength of schedule; the Wolfpack struggled against Kerwin Bell and Western Carolina in Week 1, so they might not be that good. Still, Tennessee was good enough to move ahead of Miami, which rose a notch to eighth after doing what it should do against Florida A&M.
I had no idea what to do with Notre Dame, which lost at home on a last-minute field goal to Northern Illinois. How do you balance that against what I thought was a great win at Texas A&M last week? My answer: Rank the Huskies. Add the upset at Notre Dame to a 54-15 win over the Western Illinois Leathernecks, and the Huskies have a good enough resume to warrant consideration. I put Northern Illinois 23rd and the Irish 24th (down 18 from last week).
Other AP top 25 thoughts
• Give former Bloomingdale High coach Max Warner and the rest of the Bowling Green staff credit. Warner (the Falcons’ quarterbacks coach) helped Bowling Green hang with Penn State. I knocked the Nittany Lions down five spots to 13th after a 34-27 win.
• I dropped Michigan nine spots to 20th but kept the Wolverines in my rankings, despite their uncompetitive showing against Texas. My logic is similar to how I treated Clemson after the Tigers’ season-opening loss to Georgia. The Longhorns, like the Bulldogs, might just be that good. Clemson validated my thoughts, at least, by crushing Appalachian State to move up to 18th this week.
• Kansas State’s 34-27 win at Tulane helped bump the Wildcats up four spots to 12th. The Green Wave impressed me and look like an AAC frontrunner. A road victory over a top-40 team looks good for Kansas State.
• Wiregrass Ranch High alumnus Rocco Becht completed 12 of his final 16 passes to lead Iowa State past Iowa. I considered both teams last week, so the Cyclones’ triumph earned them the No. 21 spot on my ballot.
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• Georgia Tech and Kansas both fell out of my rankings after losses to Syracuse and Illinois. Texas A&M is out, too, because its defeat against Notre Dame looks worse now. Illinois got my final spot after upsetting the Jayhawks. I thought hard about adding UCF, which has outscored its awful opponents 102-17 through two weeks. But I want to see the Knights beat a decent opponent first (like at TCU on Saturday). Cal, Syracuse, BYU, Indiana, Arizona State, Nebraska and Texas State were among the other teams I considered.
Our AP top 25 rankings
1. Georgia
2. Texas
3. Ohio State
4. Mississippi
5. Alabama
6. Oregon
7. Tennessee
8. Miami
9. USC
10. Utah
11. Missouri
12. Kansas State
13. Penn State
14. LSU
15. Oklahoma State
16. Louisville
17. Memphis
18. Clemson
19. Arizona
20. Michigan
21. Iowa State
22. Oklahoma
23. Northern Illinois
24. Notre Dame
25. Illinois
• • •
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