AP Top 25: Ohio State, Indiana set for top-5 showdown as Georgia rises to No. 8

No. 2 Ohio State and No. 5 Indiana retained their spots in the AP Top 25 college football poll Sunday, setting up the third top-five matchup in the Big Ten this season for the Buckeyes.

Oregon remained No. 1 for the fifth week in a row and is the unanimous choice for the third time after escaping Wisconsin with a three-point win. The Buckeyes are followed by No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Penn State and Indiana in an unchanged top five.

Tennessee’s loss to Georgia and BYU being upset by Kansas shook up the rest of the top 10. The Bulldogs jumped three spots to No. 8 after their streak of 60 straight top-10 appearances was snapped last week. The Volunteers fell four spots to No. 10 and the Cougars fell seven spots to No. 14 after their undefeated season was ended at home by the Jayhawks.

The rest of the top 10 includes No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 7 Alabama and No. 9 Ole Miss.

The Big Ten and SEC hold nine of the top 10 spots, with Notre Dame being the only team from outside those conferences. Miami of the ACC at No. 11, by the way, is the highest-ranked team from a conference other than the Big Ten and SEC, followed by No. 12 Boise State from the Mountain West. BYU is the top-ranked Big 12 team at No. 14.

Others receiving votes: Missouri 56, Memphis 38, Kansas State 36, Syracuse 21, Louisville 15, Pittsburgh 6, LSU 6, Louisiana 5, Vanderbilt 4, Colorado State 2, Duke 2, James Madison 2, Georgia Tech 1

The Buckeyes cruised past Northwestern on Saturday and the Hoosiers pulled away, leading to Indiana’s biggest regular-season game ever. The only other top-five game in Indiana history came in the 1968 Rose Bowl, when the fourth-ranked Hoosiers lost to No. 1 USC.

Meanwhile, the Buckeyes will play their third top-five game this season, following a loss at Oregon and a win at Penn State on the road. This will be Ohio State’s 46th top-five matchup of all time – including bowls and conference title games – four fewer than Oklahoma in most. Ohio State is 23-21-1 in such games.

The Buckeyes also become the first team since LSU in 2011 to play three top-five matchups in a regular season. It will be the eighth time in the history of the AP polls, dating back to 1936, that a team has played in three top-five games during the regular season. The fifth regular-season AP top-five matchup is mostly similar to 1996 and 1943.

Indiana enters 1-70 against AP top-five teams, beating only Purdue in 1967. Ohio State is 36-46-6.

GO DEEPER

Indiana will pay coach Curt Cignetti $8 million per year on a new contract through 2032

In and out

The bottom of the table got a major makeover after five teams ranked 19th or lower lost on Saturday.

LSU and Kansas State both fell out of the rankings for the first time this season. The Tigers lost for the fourth time this season in Florida and are unranked for the first time since mid-October 2022, coach Brian Kelly’s first season in Baton Rouge. The Wildcats (7-3) took a third loss, falling at home to Arizona State.

Missouri (7-3) bowed out again after its third loss to South Carolina, as did Louisville (6-4) after its fourth loss, a stunning upset and a late-game collapse at Stanford.

No. 21 Arizona State (8-2) is ranked for the first time since Oct. 10, 2021, after defeating Kansas State. No. No. 22 Iowa State (8-2) is back in the rankings and in the Big 12 title race after snapping a two-game losing streak by beating Cincinnati.

No. 23 UNLV (8-2) reached the rankings for the first time in program history in September and dropped out after a week. The Rebels are back, boosted by early-season wins against Big 12’s Kansas and Houston and a five-point loss to Mountain West rival Boise State. No. No. 24 Illinois (7-3) also returned to the rankings after handily beating Michigan State. The Illini previously spent seven weeks at the bottom of the Top 25. – Ralph Russo, national college football writer

How Matt voted

• There are a lot of teams on the ballot this week, which makes me wish we could include ties. I’ve been a bit lower on Notre Dame than most for most of the season – the Irish have been dominant lately, but the NIU loss still holds them back in my eyes – and so my top nine becomes spots all occupied by the Big Ten and SEC after BYU’s loss to Kansas, with the Irish 10th.

Of the Big Ten, I have Oregon, Ohio State and Indiana in the top three, with Penn State in fifth. In the SEC, I have Texas in fourth place, with Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia and Tennessee almost inseparable from No. 6 to No. 9. And I can’t say I feel good about anything other than Oregon and Ohio State as No. 1 and No. 2.

Texas has a great defense but a weak resume, and the next four SEC teams, all with two losses, are nearly impossible to order due to a combination of head-to-head results (Tennessee beat Alabama, which beat Georgia, which beat Tennessee) and tough losses (Ole Miss to Kentucky, Alabama to Vanderbilt, Tennessee to Arkansas). And then there’s Texas A&M, which is ranked 15th at 8-2, hasn’t had a major win but controls its own destiny in the SEC race if it can beat Auburn and Texas. I don’t agree with the poll that puts Georgia ahead of Ole Miss after the Rebels upset the Bulldogs last week, but there’s no perfect answer either.

I’d say this will all happen naturally and a logical sequence will emerge, but this time with a 16-team SEC…maybe not?

• Some weeks I wish I could rank 35 teams. Other weeks there are more like twenty. This vote felt much more like the last, after Kansas State, Missouri, Washington State, LSU, Louisville and Pitt all lost. Ultimately, I kept Kansas State and Missouri on my ballot and moved to Tulane, Iowa State, and Illinois. I seriously considered Syracuse and UNLV and didn’t really consider the four-loss teams.

• One ranking move I don’t regret: I had Arizona State on my ballot at No. 25 last week, and the Sun Devils more than justified that ranking with a win at Kansas State to earn their first poll pick since October 2021 . – Matt Brown, executive editor of college sports and AP pollster

Is Texel overrated?

As Matt notes, it’s difficult to rank the SEC teams because of all the head-to-head issues. I’d be inclined to encourage Matt and other voters to push Texas into that pack of two-loss teams because of the Longhorns’ decisive loss to Georgia at home and general luck with the rest of their first SEC schedule.

Personally, Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee would be my order from just those teams.

But at least Matt got this right that I think the other AP voters sniffed at. Honor the week-long head-to-head and keep Ole Miss ahead of Georgia. The voters gave the Bulldogs a spot at the front. I get it, Ole Miss has worse losses – although I hate that term – to Kentucky and LSU, neither of which are ranked. Georgia’s losses are to the Rebels and Alabama. Voters also generally give teams a little more leeway for road losses. The Bulldogs lost at Oxford and Tuscaloosa.

But Ole Miss won so decisively that I would like to see that still recognized.

The same goes for No. 14 BYU and No. 13 SMU. In fact, this is probably an even more egregious miss. The Cougars won in Dallas earlier this season. That’s certainly a better loss — I hate that too — than stumbling at home against Kansas (4-6), but SMU can’t even get through Georgia’s argument with several other big wins.

I suspect that after watching BYU pull off a series of big breakaways over the past month, voters were already skeptical of the Cougars and then reacted strongly when those concerns were confirmed. – Russo

What’s next?

Week 13 of the season is full of what can be categorized as big games that no one saw coming before the season.

Aside from Indiana-Ohio State as a top-five matchup…

No. 18 Army faces No. 6 Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium. This match should be broadcast in black and white by NBC. The last time the Black Knights and Fighting Irish played both ranked teams was 1958 in South Bend. The peak of the rivalry was in the 1940s, when they played four straight top-five games – including two No. 1 vs. No. 2 games – at Yankee Stadium.

No. 14 BYU travels to No. 21 Arizona State. The Big 12 race has taken quite a turn. The Cougars and Sun Devils’ first meeting since 2021 will be the third game between the schools and the 29th overall.

Elsewhere, No. 3 Texas hosts Kentucky, No. 4 Penn State visits Minnesota, No. 7 Alabama visits Oklahoma and No. 9 Ole Miss visits Florida.

Required reading

(Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)