The Associated Press releases a top 25 list every week of the college football season, which generates a lot of controversy surrounding the best teams. These rankings put a target on the best teams back, leading to upsets in the regular season.
This year alone the preseason No.1, No.2, and No.4 have all fallen out of the rankings completely. Preseason No.2 Penn State lost their second straight game to 0-4 UCLA, after losing to Oregon, 24-30, the week prior.
Perseason No.1 Texas has also fallen out the rankings this week with a loss to the 1-3 Florida Gators who were also ranked in the top-15 before the college football season started. This was their second loss of the season even though they started as the number one team in the nation.
Clemson, who was ranked 4th in the Preseason AP Poll is now unranked. This was the biggest drop out of all preseason rankings because of their losses to Georgia Tech, Syracuse, and LSU.
There have been a handful of teams that started off unranked that have snuck their way into the top 25. These teams are Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, South Florida, Memphis, and Florida state.
Georgia Tech is the highest ranked team out of all these schools thanks to an upset win against preseason ranked No.4 Clemson.
Vanderbilt has a similar situation: from going unranked in the preseason, to them climbing to No.16 with a win against preseason No.13 South Carolina who is now unranked after a loss to ranked Alabama.
“I personally like the rankings not always being accurate to the team’s talent,” junior Vincent Diprima said. “It makes the games these teams play against the unranked teams so much more fun to watch because of the chance you will see an upset.”
