Notre Dame’s grip on No. 3 held steady in the latest Associated Press Top 25, but the Fighting Irish took a small hit in the eyes of voters anyway.
After rolling past Michigan State 27-10, Notre Dame improved to 13 straight victories, and every one of those wins has come by double digits. Even so, the Irish were the only team in the top six to go without a first-place vote this week. That’s a notable shift from the opening AP poll, when Notre Dame drew four first-place votes, and from last week, when it still had one.
Texas stayed locked in at No. 1 and Georgia remained No. 2, while Notre Dame followed at No. 3.
Ole Miss made the biggest jump near the top, climbing four spots to No. 4 after beating LSU 32-24. LSU slipped three places to No. 10 in the process.
Indiana rounded out the top five, with Miami sitting at No. 6.
The shakeup didn’t stop there. Louisville moved up after knocking off SMU, and Florida and Mississippi State both crashed the rankings after big wins.
Florida came in after taking down Auburn, while Mississippi State entered the poll after beating South Carolina. On the flip side, Virginia and Oklahoma fell out of the Top 25.
Virginia lost to West Virginia, and Oklahoma dropped despite beating New Mexico, with the narrow struggle against the Lobos following its loss at Michigan. Texas A&M also took a hard fall, dropping 14 spots to No. 23 after getting blown out at home by Kentucky.
There’s still plenty of Notre Dame relevance in the rankings. Three Irish opponents are in the AP Top 25, and two of them are inside the top 10.
Miami’s 33-20 win over Wake Forest still came with a drop to No. 6, mostly because Ole Miss surged ahead. BYU climbed two spots to No. 9, and SMU slid six spots to No. 22 after its loss to Louisville.
Five of the top 10 teams now come from the SEC, a reminder of just how much that league is driving the national picture right now. The rest of the latest AP Top 25 is filled out by Texas Tech, USC, Penn State, Tennessee, Utah, Louisville, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Florida, SMU, Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Houston.
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