\u201cCertainly, the win versus Notre Dame was a key factor for placing Miami ahead of Georgia Tech,\u201d committee chair Mack Rhoades explained. \u201cIn general, with the ACC, I think their lack of nonconference signature wins other than Miami over Notre Dame\u201d hurts the conference. <\/p>\n
Following the trio of undefeateds \u2014 Ohio State, Indiana and Texas A&M \u2014 were Alabama and Georgia, who rounded out the same top five as in last week\u2019s season-opening rankings. <\/p>\n
Texas Tech jumped two spots to No. 6 on the strength of its win over BYU, moving one notch ahead of Mississippi, which dropped to 7 despite a romp over Citadel<\/a> in a nonconference game. <\/p>\n At No. 8 was Oregon, followed by Notre Dame and Texas.<\/p>\n No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 12 BYU would be the first two teams out in this week\u2019s bracket due to the automatic spots handed to the ACC (Miami) and the highest-ranked league leader out of the Group of 5 conferences, which is now an honor that belongs to South Florida, ranked at No. 24.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve always been part of (the conversation),\u201d Rhoades said of the Bulls. \u201cSouth Florida is the most consistent of the Group of 5, to date.\u201d<\/p>\n The final bracket comes out Dec. 7, with the 12-team playoff beginning Dec. 19 and closing a month later with the title game. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Indiana-A&M and Texas Tech-Ole Miss are two toughest calls<\/p>\n Rhoades said the decision to keep Indiana at No. 2 over Texas A&M provoked the committee\u2019s second-longest conversation. <\/p>\n The Hoosiers needed last-second heroics<\/a> to win at Penn State, while the Aggies got a romp on the road at Missouri<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, discussion about those two games, but also discussion about body of work,\u201d Rhoades said. \u201cThere was conversation about Missouri. Missouri is a really good team but not the team they\u2019ve been,\u201d due to injuries at quarterback. <\/p>\n The longest conversation involved moving Texas Tech a spot past Ole Miss. <\/p>\n \u201cTexas Tech\u2019s win this last weekend \u2014 really convincing,\u201d Rhoades said. <\/p>\n Conference watch<\/p>\n ACC: Of the five teams in the conference ranked 15-22, maybe No. 22 Pitt is the team to watch. The Panthers have a 7-2 record with games against Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Miami the next three weeks. Winning any two of those might give them a chance at somehow getting into the bracket.<\/p>\n Big Ten: Outside of the top three, there are no sure things. No. 18 Michigan would work its way into the conversation with a win over you-know-who<\/a> at the end of the month, and No. 17 USC has a season-making game at Oregon on Nov. 22. <\/p>\n Big 12: There\u2019s Texas Tech. And then there\u2019s BYU (8-1). And then there\u2019s No. 13 Utah (7-2), the team the Cougars beat last month and seem destined to stay ahead of if they finish with one loss and the Utes finish with two. Only two \u2014 and perhaps only one \u2014 will make it. <\/p>\n SEC: No wonder the conference wants to do away with automatic qualifiers<\/a>. A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi feel like locks. Texas, Oklahoma and No. 14 Vanderbilt all control their own destiny. (Especially OU, which is at Alabama this week.)<\/p>\n Group of 5: With early wins over Boise State and Florida, South Florida looked like a good bet to earn that fifth conference-champion slot earlier in the season, and reclaimed the position after Memphis lost to Tulane<\/a> last week. <\/p>\n The projected first-round matchups<\/p>\n No. 12 South Florida at No. 5 Georgia: How many teams have won at the Swamp<\/a> and between the hedges in the same year … or ever? <\/p>\n No. 11 Miami at No. 6 Texas Tech: \u2018Canes won last meeting 45-10 in 1990, and closed that season with a 46-3 drubbing of Texas in the Cotton Bowl. <\/p>\n No. 10 Texas at No. 7 Ole Miss: They haven\u2019t played since UT joined the SEC last year. <\/p>\n No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oregon: Unfinished business from their 13-13 tie in 1982, Gerry Faust\u2019s second season with the Irish.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not surprisingly, Ohio State stayed at the top of the rankings, and there was a healthy debate about…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[27131,12955,38058,173797,4822,1428,1369,6064,723,10104,4353,43059,23536,179570,6323,2862,1426,13874,1574,1573,4733,83542,21286,212,35597,31596,62,358,13877,8799,5028,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-373119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-al-state-wire","9":"tag-alabama","10":"tag-atlantic-coast-conference","11":"tag-brigham-young-cougars","12":"tag-college-baseball","13":"tag-college-football","14":"tag-college-sports","15":"tag-fl-state-wire","16":"tag-florida","17":"tag-ga-state-wire","18":"tag-georgia","19":"tag-georgia-tech","20":"tag-georgia-tech-yellow-jackets","21":"tag-gerry-faust","22":"tag-in-state-wire","23":"tag-indiana","24":"tag-miami-hurricanes","25":"tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","26":"tag-oh-state-wire","27":"tag-ohio","28":"tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","29":"tag-ohio-state-buckeyes-football","30":"tag-oklahoma-sooners","31":"tag-oregon","32":"tag-south-florida-bulls","33":"tag-southeastern-conference","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-texas","36":"tag-texas-am-aggies","37":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","38":"tag-tx-state-wire","39":"tag-united-states","40":"tag-unitedstates","41":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n