Oklahoma dives in poll; UT, A&Mdip

A wild weekend of college football forced a shakeup in the new Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Highly-ranked schools like Oklahoma and LSU suffered their first losses of the year.

Texas and Texas A&M, schools comfortably within to Top 25, also experienced some close calls on Saturday and fell slightly in the latest ranking. Texas checked in at No. 9, down from No. 8 after a close call in a win at Texas Tech. The Aggies, No. 10 last week, dropped to 13 after a 17-12 victory over Vanderbilt.

The Sooners, No. 3 last week, plummeted to No. 18 after getting upset by Kansas State.

Clemson remained No. 1 with 55 first-place votes, followed by Alabama at No. 2 with three first-place votes.

The rest of the rankings was rattled by the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mountain West and Mid-American conferences reversing course and deciding to play fall football after initially postponing because of COVID-19 concerns.

No. 6 Ohio State, No. 10 Penn State and No. 14 Oregon returned to the poll.

None will kick off until late October at the earliest, but the AP decided all FBS teams planning to play in the fall would be eligible for inclusion in the Top 25.

Most voters put the most highly regarded teams from those latearriving conferences back into their rankings, but not all did. A few stuck with only teams currently playing.

No. 6 and defending national champion LSU was upset by Mississippi State in coach Mike Leach’s debut with the Bulldogs. The Tigers dropped to No. 20 and Mississippi State jumped in at No. 16.

Back at the top, Florida moved up two spots to No. 3, Georgia held on at No. 4 and Notre Dame benefitted from the upsets by moving up to No. 5 without playing. As a reminder that this season is anything but normal, the Fighting Irish were idle this weekend because of COVID-19 issues and won’t play next week either.

Then came the Buckeyes, who received four first-place votes. Ohio State is loaded and was a close No. 2 to Clemson in the preseason poll.