A dozen teams made moves up in the latest AP Top 25 Poll that was released Tuesday following a extended holiday weekend of games. Ohio State remains atop the group.
The Week 1 Associated Press Top 25 Poll was released on Tuesday morning after a long Labor Day Weekend of college football, and it’s for all intents and purposes the first real edition of the rankings we’ll see this season after the collective shot in the dark that is the preseason poll.
Ohio State’s 50-0 win over MAC foe Ball State was enough to keep them in the No. 1 spot, despite the fact that No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 4 Texas all registered more convincing performances overall on Saturday. Oregon, the preseason No. 2 team in the nation, dropped to No. 6 after unranked Boise State took the Ducks to the wire in Eugene.
LSU had the biggest rise in the latest AP Top 25 Poll on Tuesday while Oregon was the biggest faller.
Did the voters get it right? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/jaTDay0i56
— teamfb (@teamfbseven) September 8, 2026
The biggest riser among teams that were already ranked in the preseason poll was predictable Lane Kiffin’s LSU Tigers, who put forward arguably the most definitive statement of the weekend in a 51-10 rout of Clemson in Death Valley.
Virginia is the only completely new team in the polls this week at No. 25, replacing Michigan after the Wolverines and the Big Ten Conference stole a program-defining upset from Western Michigan on Saturday.
Now that you’ve gotten the lay of the land, let’s break down these rankings a little bit more with five key takeaways.
The AP Needs To Re-Consider Voters
Out of respect for my fellow reporters and the hours I know every beat writer puts in, I’m going to refrain from naming names here. However, week-in and week-out, there are consistently glaring mistakes on certain voters’ ballots that can only be explained away by either flagrant carelessness or a general lack of knowledge about the sport.
For example, one voter left No. 7 Miami off their ballot entirely this week after the Hurricanes dog-walked Stanford 45-6 on Friday. The fact that Miami was left unranked on this voter’s ballot is almost certainly the reason the Hurricanes didn’t leap frog Oregon for the No. 6 ranking. Another voter, who made a similar omission last year and explained it away by saying “it doesn’t really matter in the end”, penalized Michigan exactly zero spots in their ballot this week after the WMU fiasco.
The AP Poll isn’t a meaningless exercise to stroke the egos of big-named reporters in college football’s most prominent markets, though much of the current participants seem to think it is. It’s a legitimate historical record that carries significant meaning in the sport’s documentation, and it would be nice to at least see the AP and its affiliates start treating it as such again.
Texas vs. Ohio State Will Determine Next Week’s No. 1
Texas’ 59-7 thrashing of in-state foe Texas State didn’t do much for the Longhorns in terms of their ranking, as their move from No. 5 to No. 4 was almost entirely due to Oregon’s near-stumble against Boise State. Luckily for Steve Sarkisian and company, Texas will almost certainly sit atop the polls next Monday if it takes care of business against No. 1 Ohio State as home favorites on Saturday night.
We all remember the slog that was the Buckeyes’ 14-7 win at the Horseshoe last season, but you can all but guarantee Saturday’s edition is going to be a much more entertaining and high-scoring affair. Unlike last season, Texas now has the depth and experience on both sides of the ball to be legitimately confident entering this matchup. QB Arch Manning, DE Colin Simmons, WR Cam Coleman are all widely mocked to be drafted with a top five pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, and it’s honestly hard not to consider the Longhorns the national favorite given their insane roster.
On Ohio State’s end, Jeremiah Smith has been considered the defining player of his class since he stepped foot on campus and Saturday is among his biggest stages to prove he’s as generational as advertised. It’s also a major test for Julian Sayin, who’s efficiency is going to be put to the test against this vaunted Texas defense.
Iowa Could Make Big Statement
At first glance, No. 21 Iowa’s 40-0 over Northern Illinois seems like a pretty regular score for the Hawkeyes to close out a Week 1 victory with. It doesn’t tell the whole story. Iowa ran out to a commanding 33-0 lead at halftime and did so with offensive flair that seemed entirely foreign compared to the low-scoring Hawkeyes teams of the past.
Tony Diaz proved he could emerge as one the premier receivers in the Big Ten with his 7-catch, 84-yard performance, and tight end DJ Vonnahme is among the nation’s best. Kamari Moulton looks to be well on his way to his first 1,000-yard rushing season at the collegiate level, and defense is typically not an issue in Des Moines. Now that Hank Brown is solidified as the team’s starting quarterback, it feels like the Hawkeyes could be on the verge of a major statement against in-state Iowa State on Saturday.
If Iowa, currently a 14-point favorite, can manage to open up the score and put a gaudy number up en route to taking home the Cy-Hawk Trophy, I’d expect them to be the biggest mover in next week’s AP Poll, even more so than what Texas will gain if they go from No. 4 to No. 1 by beating Ohio State.
SMU Inexplicably Rises, Washington Doesn’t Fall Enough
No. 16 SMU may have won in a tough, powerless environment against Florida State in Tallahassee on Monday, but the way it got there was just not convincing enough to justify a two-spot rise in the polls. I won’t go as far as saying they should have dropped out of the polls entirely, but Florida State has been a lost program since being snubbed from the 2024 CFP and is en route to what is almost certainly another season that falls short of bowl eligibility. QB Kevin Jennings is still as mistake-prone as he is dynamic, and it’s hard to imagine SMU running the table while that remains a reality.
SMU is the only FBS or NFL team in the last 30 years to have:
-3 or worse turnover margin
twice as many penalties as their opponent
fewer rushing yards than their opponent
lower TOP than their opponent
more missed FG than their opponent…and yet still win the game.
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 8, 2026
Washington, on the other hand, did drop a couple spots after the abomination of a performance it put together against Washington State on Sunday, regardless of the fact that it won 24-10. Demond Williams Jr. and the Huskies offense looked stagnant at their best and downright lifeless at their worst, and that was even before they lost the top two running backs (Quaid Carr and Jayden Vidal) on their depth chart to what are expected to be lengthy injury recoveries. I don’t suspect Jedd Fisch and company will be in the polls all that much longer.
Virginia Deserved Respect, Now It’ll Make A Run
You know what’s going to age pretty badly historically? The fact that Virginia is going to enter this season’s College Football Playoff with a 12-1 record and an ACC runners-up badge, and we’re all going to have to reconcile with the fact that it was somehow unranked in the preseason. Tony Elliott’s squad already proved last season that it was a new day in Charlottesville, but voters chose to believe the hype of some far less deserving units before considering what these Cavaliers had to offer.
Looking at Virginia’s regular season schedule, the potential truly is there for a once-in-a-lifetime season. Duke and SMU are the only real daunting tasks for the Cavaliers in the regular season, and I’m way higher on Duke than I am on SMU at the moment. I don’t have enough faith it’ll beat an also undefeated (and possibly No. 1) Miami in the ACC title game, but there are few teams in all of college football who have a more straight forward path to getting to the Playoff.
