AP Top 25 College Football Poll: Alabama Remains No. 8 Heading to Iron Bowl
By RALPH D. RUSSO AP College Football Writer
Alabama remains at No. 8 in the latest AP Top 25 College Football Poll as the Crimson Tide prepares to host unranked Auburn in the Iron Bowl.
Top-ranked Georgia received 62 of the 63 first-place votes as the top four teams held their places after playing varying degrees of close games Saturday.
No. 2 Ohio State received the other first-place vote. Michigan was No. 3 again, followed by TCU.
The fifth-ranked USC Trojans edged up two spots after a thrilling victory against rival UCLA. The last time USC was ranked in the top five was September of 2017, when it started at No. 4 but spent most of the season ranked in the teens before finishing 12th.
Lincoln Riley’s first season as USC coach has produced one of the best turnarounds in the country, with the Trojans going from four wins to 10, and the regular-season finale against No. 13 Notre Dame and a Pac-12 championship game still to go.
LSU stayed at No. 6. Clemson moved up two spots to No. 7, jumping Alabama.
Tennessee dropped four spots to No. 9 after getting upset in a blowout at South Carolina. In their 63-38 victory, the Gamecocks scored more points against a top-five team as an unranked team than any in the history of the AP poll.
Oregon rounded out the top 10 after the Ducks beat Utah in the Pac-12’s other marquee game on Saturday night.
AP TOP 25 COLLEGE FOOTBALL POLL (FIRST-PLACE POINTS IN PARENTHESES; SEC TEAMS IN BOLD):
- Georgia (62)
- Ohio State (1)
- Michigan
- TCU
- USC
- LSU
- Clemson
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Oregon
- Penn State
- Washington
- Notre Dame
- Utah
- Kansas State
- Florida State
- UCLA
- North Carolina
- Tulane
- Ole Miss
- Cincinnati
- Oregon State
- Coastal Carolina
- Texas
- UCF
(Copyright 2022 The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)
