Seeing as none of the Top 14 teams from last week’s USA Today coaches’ poll lost, there was very little change, as expected, in this week’s release.
What change there was, though, was at least mildly interesting.
Florida State, on the strength of its 63-0 pasting of previously unbeaten Maryland, climbed over Georgia and Louisville into the No. 6 spot in the Week 6 coaches’ poll. The Seminoles have seen a steady rise in the polls this year, starting the season at No. 12 before moving to No. 10 after the opener; No. 9 after Week 2; and into the No. 8 hole for the past three weeks.
No. 1 Alabama again had the most first-place votes, although the Tide lost two more to No. 2 Oregon and now holds 57 of them. The Ducks garnered four first-place votes while No. 4 Clemson had the lone remaining.
No. 3 Ohio State, despite winning on the road against a ranked and undefeated team in Northwestern, saw their point total drop from 1,397 to 1,356.
Stanford, thanks to its 3-point home win over unbeaten Washington, remains at No. 5, with Texas A&M and Oklahoma holding serve at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively. Georgia and Louisville, despite winning, dropped one spot each to No. 7 for the former and No. 7 for the latter.
The coaches actually showed respect to Northwestern and Washington in their losses to higher-ranked teams. The Wildcats only dropped three spots to No. 18 after the three-10-point loss to the Buckeyes, while the Huskies slipped just one to No. 19.
Florida was the only team other than Florida State and Northwestern to move up or down more than one spot, exiting Week 6 at No. 17 after entering No. 19.
Just one team fell out of the Top 25, with Arizona State dropping out after its loss to Notre Dame. The Sun Devils were replaced by Virginia Tech (No. 25), The Hokies returned to the coaches’ poll for the first time since the Sept. 23 release last year.
There are currently 10 one-loss teams in the Top 25, with five coming from the SEC alone. Those five also serve as the highest-ranked of the one-loss teams. The Big Ten is the only other conference with more than one one-loss team in the rankings.
Conversely, there are just two undefeated teams that are unranked and, surprisingly, one of them comes from the SEC: 5-0 Missouri. The AAC’s Houston is the only other of the 17 unbeaten team that is left out of the coaches’ poll.
(Writer’s note: Apparently, there was a glitch in USA Today’s online poll. Ohio State and Clemson are not tied at No. 3. The body of this post has been changed to reflect their error, although we’re still waiting to get the proper point totals to plug into the full set of rankings. Thanks in advance for your cooperation in this matter.)
(Updated writer’s note: USA Today has indeed updated its poll and the totals you see below are now correct. We apologize for any inconvenience and/or angst this may have caused you.)
