AP Top 25 college football poll: Saturday upsets cause major shuffle as Notre Dame falls

Saturday saw six teams that were ranked in last week’s Associated Press Top 25 college football poll suffer defeats, with four of them losing to unranked teams.

Time for a September shuffle.

While Texas and Tennessee both strengthened their resumes with wins over fellow ranked teams, Notre Dame, Kansas, Georgia Tech and Iowa were upset victims which shook up the new poll rankings released on Sunday.

To no one’s surprise, N.C. State was among the four teams that fell out of the rankings after Tennessee walloped the Wolfpack, 51-10, on Saturday night in Charlotte. Also disappearing from the poll are Georgia Tech, Iowa and Kansas

Georgia (2-0) remained at No. 1 while Texas (2-0) moved up a spot to No. 2 on the strength of its 31-12 win over Michigan in a battle of top-10 teams on Saturday. Conversely, the reigning national champion Wolverines fell seven spots to No. 17.

Notre Dame tumbled more than any team. Saturday’s 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois caused voters to kick the Irish down 13 spots to No. 18.

Mississippi (2-0) took advantage and moved into the top five at No. 5 as the Rebels have opened the season with two lopsided wins.

Tennessee moved up seven spots to No. 7, giving the SEC six teams in the top seven. No conference has ever accomplished that feat.

Miami is now at No. 10 as the Hurricanes (2-0) are the highest ranked ACC team. Other ACC teams in the poll are No. 19 Louisville (2-0), No. 22 Clemson (1-1) and No. 24 Boston College (2-0).

The Eagles are one of four newcomers to his week’s poll, joining No. 21 Iowa State, No. 23 Nebraska and No. 25 Northern Illinois.

Other ACC teams receiving votes but not cracking the top 25 this week are Syracuse, North Carolina and California.

Associated Press Top 25 poll

Steve Wiseman’s AP Top 25 ballot

While preseason polls are mainly guesses, judging teams after the games begin is the real joy.

That means AP Top 25 college football poll voters, like myself, shouldn’t hesitate to make major changes from week to week as results roll in.

Texas made a huge statement by whipping Michigan, 31-12, on Saturday. Meanwhile, Oregon has also started 2-0 and is in the top 10. But the Ducks have made another statement by struggling to beat Idaho, 24-14, and Boise State, 37-34.

So Oregon needs to move down.

So, too, does Notre Dame, which went from beating an SEC team on the road to losing to a Mid-American team at home. Ouch.

On the other hand, Mississippi and Tennessee have only dominated. The Vols destroyed a fellow ranked team, N.C. State, by a 51-10 count on Saturday night.

Ole Miss has yet to play a fellow Power 4 conference team, but the Rebels have won their first two games by a combined margin of 128-3.

Both look like top-5 teams.

The Wolfpack was among ranked teams losing, joining Kansas, Iowa and Georgia Tech, plus the aforementioned Wolverines and Irish.

All this means major shuffling on ballots.

Northern Illinois enters after beating Notre Dame, 16-14, and so does Illinois, which beat Kansas, 23-17.

Clemson looked so good in whipping App State, 66-20, that I’ll give the Tigers a vote. But Boston College falls out. The Eagles have more proving to do because that win over Florida State doesn’t carry enough weight just yet. Boston College gets that chance on Saturday at Missouri.

Iowa State enters after beating Iowa, 20-19.

This story will be updated when the new AP Top 25 poll is announced at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 8.