Alabama now the unanimous No. 1

Alabama is now a unanimous No. 1 in The Associated Press college football poll, and Northwestern moved up to No. 11 on Sunday for its best ranking in 24 years.

For the second straight week, the top eight teams in the poll held their spots. The Crimson Tide received all 62 first- place votes after beating Kentucky 63- 3, making Alabama the first unanimous No. 1 this season and the first team to do it in the regular season since 2018.

Notre Dame was No. 2, followed by Ohio State, Clemson and Texas A& M. Florida was No. 6, and No. 7 Cincinnati and No. 8 BYU also held their spots.

The rest of the top 10 was No. 9 Oregon and Miami.

Northwestern moved up eight spots after beating Wisconsin 17- 7 to improve to 5- 0. The Badgers slipped eight spots to 18th.

The Wildcats were last ranked this highly in 1996. The year after their surprising run to the Rose Bowl, coach Gary Barnett’s team reached a high of No. 10.

No. 12 Indiana dropped three spots after putting a scare into Ohio State in the Big Ten’s other top- 25 matchup Saturday. The Buckeyes beat the Hoosiers 42- 35 after leading 35- 7.

This is the 80th time in the history of the AP poll, which dates back to 1936, there has been a unanimous No. 1.

It was a rare occurrence in the early days of the poll, when college football was more regional. From 1936- 66, only twice was there a unanimous No. 1.

Southern California was a unanimous No. 1 twice during the 1967 season, but not until the 1990s did the unanimous No. 1 become a common occurrence.

Virus

updates. The Apple Cup game between Washington and Washington has been canceled. The game was scheduled for Friday in

Pullman. The Pac- 12 said the decision was made under the conference’s football policy because Washington State does not have the minimum number of scholarship players available for the game because of COVID- 19.

• Fresno State has had its second straight football game canceled because of COVID

19. The Mountain West says Friday’s scheduled game between the Bulldogs and San Diego State will be declared a nocontest because Fresno State doesn’t have enough available players because of contact tracing from COVID- 19. The Bulldogs’ game this past week against San Jose State was also canceled.