Oregon, Iowa big movers in AP poll
Oregon and Iowa were the big movers in the Associated Press college football poll Sunday after road wins Saturday over top-10 opponents.
Oregon’s victory over Ohio State earned the Ducks a promotion from No. 12 to No. 4.
Another impressive defensive performance by Iowa against Iowa State in the CyHawk Trophy game pushed the Hawkeyes from No. 10 to No. 5.
Arkansas, coming off a home win over old Southwest Conference rival Texas, was rewarded with its first appearance in the AP Top 25 in five years, coming in at No. 20.
Alabama remained No. 1 in the poll. The Crimson Tide received 60 of the 63 first-place votes. Georgia, which picked up the other three first-place votes, stayed at No. 2.
Oklahoma was No. 3, followed by Oregon, Iowa, Clemson, Texas A&M, Cincinnati, Ohio State and Penn State.
Oregon’s eight-rung leap came after its 35-28 win in the Horseshoe. It marks the biggest jump for a team entering the top five since LSU went from No. 13 to No. 5 after it knocked off second-ranked Georgia in October 2018.
The Ducks have their highest ranking since they finished the 2014 season No. 2 as the runner-up to Ohio State.
Iowa, a 27-17 winner at Iowa State, allowed a total of 23 points while beating two ranked teams in succession for the first time since 1960. The Hawkeyes have their highest ranking since they were No. 3 on Nov. 22, 2015, after a 12-0 start.
Ohio State dropped from No. 3 to No. 9 and Iowa State from No. 9 to No. 14.
The Big Ten has five ranked teams and matches the SEC with three in the top 10, thanks to Penn State’s move up from No. 11.
Trouble in Tallahassee:
After a week of optimism about the overall direction of the football program following an overtime loss to Notre Dame in its season opener, Florida State now finds itself inexplicably facing a gloomy outlook.
And all it took was six seconds to erase what many believed was the turning point for a program looking to return to national relevance.
That’s how long it took for Jacksonville State receiver Damond Philyaw-Johnson to bob and weave his way past several defenders 59 yards into the end zone for a game-winning touchdown with no time on the clock to give the Gamecocks a stunning 20-17 win over the Seminoles in Tallahassee, Fla., on Saturday night.
“We did not have our team ready to play today,” Mike Norvell said after the eighth loss in 11 games as the coach at FSU. “Coming off last week, we came out and definitely didn’t play in any way to the standard of what we’re capable of. The penalties, the selfinflicted mistakes — it’s 100% on me. We did not have the guys ready to go.”
It was Florida State’s first loss against a team from the Football Championship Subdivision in 27 games dating to 1978. The Seminoles are 0-2 for the second consecutive season and for the third time in the past five years.
Nice grab: The most notable catch Saturday in a game between No. 22 Miami and visiting Appalachian State didn’t happen on the field.
Wasn’t even a football. It was a cat.
The animal somehow got into Hard Rock Stadium, then caught one of its paws in the facade of the upper deck. It eventually fell to the lower level of the stadium, where fans using an American flag as a makeshift net were able to safely catch it.
“They were trying to grab it from above and they couldn’t reach it but they were scaring it downward,” said Craig Cromer, a season-ticket holder who with his wife, Kimberly, brings the flag to each home game. “It hung there for a little while with its two front paws, then one paw, then I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, it’s coming soon.’ ”
That’s when the Cromers unhooked the flag from the ties they use to keep it on a railing and hoped for the best. The cat fell, bounced a bit off the flag and eventually was secured by someone in the nearby student section before it was taken away by stadium security workers.
Late Saturday
Oregon State 45, Hawaii 27: Chance Nolan passed for 302 yards and two touchdowns, and B.J. Baylor ran for 171 yards and three scores to lead the host Beavers (1-1) past the Rainbow Warriors (1-2).
San Diego State 38, Arizona 14: Senior Jordan Brookshire, a Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa Junior College and Laney College alum, threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as the visiting Aztecs (2-0) beat the Wildcats (0-2), who have lost 14 in a row.