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AP Top 25 Poll: Week Eleven

Did the Tar Heels get back into the rankings after their comeback win?

By Matt Ferenchick
NCAA Football: Wake Forest at North Carolina Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Despite several notable games getting wiped off the slate due to COVID-19, college football rolled along this weekend.

North Carolina made its mark on the weekend with a fairly remarkable comeback win over Wake Forest. Now that the dust has settled from that game and the rest of the college football weekend, let’s see where things stand in the newest edition of the AP Top 25 rankings.

AP Top 25

  1. Alabama Crimson Tide (60 first place votes)
  2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1)
  3. Ohio State Buckeyes (1)
  4. Clemson Tigers
  5. Texas A&M Aggies
  6. Florida Gators
  7. Cincinnati Bearcats
  8. BYU Cougars
  9. Indiana Hoosiers
  10. Wisconsin Badgers
  11. Oregon Ducks
  12. Miami Hurricanes
  13. Georgia Bulldogs
  14. Oklahoma State Cowboys
  15. Marshall Thundering Herd (Tied with Coastal Carolina)
  16. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (Tied with Marshall)
  17. Iowa State Cyclones
  18. Oklahoma Sooners
  19. Northwestern Wildcats
  20. USC Trojans
  21. Liberty Flames
  22. Texas Longhorns
  23. Auburn Tigers
  24. Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns
  25. Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Where is UNC?

Despite the win over Wake Forest to move to 6-2, UNC has not cracked its way back into the top 25. For the second consecutive week, they are the unofficial #26, having gotten the most votes of anyone not ranked. It’s not as if no one dropped out to give the Tar Heels the chance: SMU fell from #19 to unranked. It’s just that the Tulsa team that beat SMU jumped Carolina to leave them on the outside looking in. However, the Heels are now back in the Coaches’ Poll at #24.

Biggest Winners

The aforementioned Tulsa team is the biggest winner, making their first top 25 appearance in a decade, when Todd Graham was their coach. (Graham is now on his third different head coaching job since leaving Tulsa, in related news.)

Elsewhere, Northwestern had a big jump, moving up four spots after improving to 4-0 to start the season. Wisconsin had the only other big move up, improving by three after their destruction of Michigan.

Biggest Losers

Also as mentioned, SMU had the biggest fall this week, going from #19 to unranked.

The only other major drop actually belongs to a team that won over the weekend. After beating Virginia Tech by just a point, Miami fell out of the top 10, dropping three spots to #12. Part of that was probably due to a close win over a now .500 Hokies team, but another part was due to some teams moving up thanks to decent wins.

Conference Breakdown

  • ACC: 3
  • American: 2
  • Big 12: 4
  • Big Ten: 4
  • Conference USA: 1
  • Independent: 2
  • Pac-12: 2
  • SEC: 5
  • Sun Belt: 2

Next Week’s Marquee Top 25 Matchups

All but one of last week’s picks were cancelled due to that whole global pandemic thing, so let’s see if we get some better luck this week.

  • #9 Indiana (4-0) at #3 Ohio State (3-0) - Saturday at 12 PM ET on FOX
  • #10 Wisconsin (2-0) at #19 Northwestern (4-0) - Saturday at 3:30 PM ET on ABC
  • #14 Oklahoma State (5-1) at #18 Oklahoma (5-2) - Saturday at 7:30 PM ET on ABC

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