Clemson stays at No. 1 ahead of Alabama — 66point win helps
Clemson easily held off Alabama on Sunday to retain the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press college football poll, extending its longest run atop the poll to seven weeks.
The Crimson Tide ran away from Georgia 4124 on Saturday night to make the case to be No. 1, but it wasn’t enough to topple the Tigers.
Clemson defended its turf with a historic blowout against
Georgia Tech, 737. The 66point rout was the largest ever in an Atlantic Coast Conference football game. Clemson received 54 firstplace votes out of 62 from the panel of sports writers and broadcasters.
The Crimson Tide got the other firstplace votes. Notre Dame moved up to a seasonhigh No. 3, No. 4 Georgia dropped a spot and Ohio State moved up to No. 5 a week before the Big Ten starts playing.
Clemson has been No. 1 since the preseason. The Tigers have been topranked 23 times in school history but not more than five times in a season before this year.
North Carolina took a big fall, dropping nine spots to No. 14 after losing at Florida State.
Superb Saban: When it comes to winning against ranked teams, Alabama head coach Nick Saban is the best ever.
Even before beating Georgia, Saban held the record for most victories against AP topfive teams ( now 25) and top10 teams ( now 42). Saban’s latest victory was his 86th, tying Penn State’s Joe Paterno for the most.
Saban has benefited from having his coaching career come at a time when the rankings extend to 25 teams, as opposed to 20, which was the case for the front end of Paterno’s 46year career. The average number of games in a season is also longer now.
But it took Saban only 25 seasons and 318 total games to match what Paterno did in 548 games. Alabama does not currently have another ranked team left on its schedule.
Poll newcomers: Unbeaten Coastal Carolina is ranked for the first time in the program’s short history. The Chanticleers from Conway, S. C., joined the FBS in 2017.
They beat Sun Belt rival Louisiana Lafayette on Wednesday to improve to 40. The loss knocked the Ragin’ Cajuns out of the Top 25, but it still has been a banner year for the Sun Belt. The conference has had three of its teams ranked at one point or another. Never before had more than one Sun Belt team been ranked in any season. 1 No. 22 Marshall moved back into the rankings. The unbeaten Thundering Herd were ranked in September and got bumped by the return of Big Ten and Pac12 teams to the poll, but they have played their way back in the poll. 1 No. 23 North Carolina State is ranked for the first time since 2018, but starting quarterback Devin Leary could miss the rest of the regular season after having surgery for a leg injury suffered in a win against Duke.
Moving out: Joining Louisiana Lafayette in falling from the rankings were two SEC teams. Auburn and Tennessee each absorbed a second loss of the season and dropped from the Top 25 for the first time.
Brohm tests positive: Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm has tested positive for the coronavirus, the school announced. Brohm is awaiting a second test to confirm the initial result and is isolating at his home, Purdue’s athletic department said in a statement.