AP Top 25: Oregon State overtakes Georgia for first place as Alabama drops, and Vanderbilt replaces Michigan

Oregon moved into first place in Uptop 25 The College Football Playoff poll is on Sunday for the first time since 2012 after Texas became the third top-ranked team in the country to lose this season with its loss to Georgia. No. 15 Alabama fell to its lowest ranking in 14 years after losing to Tennessee.

The Ducks, who shut out Purdue on Friday, received 59 first-place votes to move from second to first place and Georgia jumped three spots to second place after its win at Texas. Georgia received two first-place votes and the Longhorns dropped to fifth. No. 3 Penn State and No. 4 Ohio State retain their spots after being inactive, and No. 6 Miami, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 8 LSU, No. 9 Clemson and No. 10 Iowa round out the top 10.

The Volunteers led by four points after beating Alabama, and the Crimson Tide trailed by eight. Alabama was last ranked this low in 2010, when it dropped to No. 17 after losing the regular-season finale to eventual national champion Auburn and Cam Newton. The Crimson Tide finished that season 10-3 and ranked 10th in the country, their lowest final ranking of the Nick Saban era after his first team finished unranked in 2007.

No. 25 Vanderbilt is ranked for the first time since 2013, and defending national champion Michigan is unranked for the first time in three years. With Indiana moving up to No. 13 after its blowout win over Nebraska, this is the first AP poll to show both the Commodores and Hoosiers since Nov. 15, 1937.

Others receiving votes: Washington State 46, Syracuse 15, UNLV 5, Duke 2, South Carolina 1, Nebraska 1, Liberty 1

No. 1 is changing again

Oregon is the fourth team to finish first this season, the most first-place finishes in a single season since 2014.

Georgia started the season in first place but bounced off the top spot in mid-September and was replaced by Texas after the Longhorns won at Michigan and the Bulldogs struggled with Kentucky. Alabama clinched the top spot for a week with a win over Georgia, but then lost to Vanderbilt, bringing the top spot back to Texas. This lasted two weeks.

Georgia’s 15-point win Saturday night in Austin was the largest margin of victory over a team ranked No. 1 in the AP poll in a regular season since Oklahoma beat Nebraska 31-14 in 2000 — and the largest on the road since Notre Dame. The Lady beat Pitt 31-16 in 1982.

Now, Oregon is the first Big Ten team to finish No. 1 during the regular season since Ohio State in 2015. Michigan didn’t become No. 1 last season until after the conference championship games. The Ducks have previously spent eight weeks as the No. 1 team in the country, including one week in 2012 and seven in 2010. Ralph Russo, national college football writer

In and out

The last time Vanderbilt was ranked at the end of the 2013 season under coach James Franklin. The Commodores had the second-longest active AP Poll drought among power conference teams behind Rutgers, which had not been ranked since November 2012.

Vanderbilt (5-2) has won three straight and will host Texas next week in the program’s first game featuring two ranked teams since Oct. 18, 2008, when the No. 22 Commodores lost to No. 10 Georgia. Two weeks ago, No. 19 Vandy beat No. 13 Auburn in the last His home match. The last two times Vanderbilt was ranked came in the final polls of the season (2012 and 2013).

Vandy replaced Michigan in the rankings this week. The Wolverines were the only team to bow out after falling to 4-3 with a loss to Illinois on Saturday, and they are unranked for the first time since the first regular-season poll of the 2021 season. It was Illinois’ first win in a seed-versus-seed game at home since 1991 against State Ohio.

The Wolverines’ streak of 54 straight weeks ranks as the fourth-longest active streak in the country behind Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia, according to College surveys archive. The last defending national champion to finish unranked was 2020 LSU, which went 5-5 in that pandemic-shortened season. — Rousseau

Oregon is clearly No. 1, Alabama is an enigma and Indiana is underrated

• I was one of six voters who picked Oregon first last week after it beat Ohio State, making the Ducks an easy choice there on the ballot after Texas’ loss. The rest of the top five fell into place quite easily, with Georgia back in second place — now owning a 15-point win over a once-ranked team that lost what turned out to be an elimination in Alabama — followed by Ohio State, Penn State, and Miami, which held on to It holds steady in those three spots on my ballot. I voted Texas No. 6. On the one hand, losing to Georgia is forgivable, but it’s also become easier to poke holes in the Longhorns’ resume, given Michigan and Oklahoma’s struggles.

• How far should Alabama fall? It was the toughest question to vote on this week. It dropped the Crimson Tide to 17th place. They have losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee, but they also have a win over Georgia that got a boost from Saturday’s result in Austin. There is no perfect answer, especially because you are He could Making a case for Alabama to fall behind Vanderbilt, given the head-to-head score and identical records. But the win over Georgia — and Vandy’s loss to Georgia State — are enough to create separation.

• Everything from No. 7 to No. 17 is clustered, as the margins are so small between several Power 4 teams with one loss and undefeated teams like Indiana, Iowa State, BYU and Pitt. There is a lot of confusion ahead. However, I think Indiana deserves to be higher than its No. 13 seed. It’s true that the Hoosiers played a weak schedule, but they got a measure of validation by crushing Nebraska 56-7 — their biggest win in the Big Ten since 1945 — and won At least twice every week. They rank No. 1 in scoring and No. 7 in points allowed, and although an injury to center Curtis Rourke creates uncertainty, they are ranked 10th in my No. 8 poll. — Matt Brown, managing editor of college sports and an AP Top 25 voter

What’s next in week 8?

Although there is no top-five team like Georgia takes on Texas, next Saturday features five matchups between ranked teams:

No. 20 Illinois at No. 1 Oregon. The last time the Ducks played a game as the No. 1 team in the country, they lost at home to No. 14 Stanford in overtime on November 17, 2012.

No. 12 Notre Dame vs. No. 24 Navy (at East Rutherford, NJ) The 97th meeting will be only the 11th meeting with both teams ranked. Most recently in 2019, when No. 16 Notre Dame beat the 21st-ranked Midshipmen by a score of 52-20.

No. 21 Missouri at No. 15 Alabama. The Tidal streak of consecutive appearances in the AP Poll is now 270, the second-best appearance ever behind Nebraska’s 348 from 1981-2002. Could another loss end the matter?

No. 5 Texas at No. 25 Vanderbilt. The first meeting since 1928, eight years before the AP poll began.

No. 8 LSU at No. 14 Texas A&M. Oddity: Every game between the Tigers and Aggies since 2017 has featured one ranked team. The last time they were ranked when they played was in 2016. — Rousseau

Required reading

(Dillon Gabriel Photo: Justin Casterlin/Getty Images)