AP Top 25 poll: Alabama, Notre Dame stand as top two with college football rankings shaken up

There’s a new No. 1 at the top of the college football rankings as Alabama moved up to take over the top spot in the new AP Top 25 poll following Clemson’s double-overtime loss at Notre Dame. 

The Crimson Tide were off in Week 10 but had been slowly gaining on Clemson’s lead in the ballots, closing the gap in voting points and first-place votes over the last month. The Tigers fell to No. 4 after the defeat, and Alabama took a large portion of those first-place votes to establish a firm hold on No. 1. Notre Dame moved up to No. 2 after the epic win, picking up just two first-place votes along the way, while Ohio State remained at No. 3 with one first-place votes after a routine dispatching of Rutgers. 

Florida moved from No. 8 up to No. 6 after beating Georgia in Jacksonville, Florida, but the voters kept the Gators’ rise from jumping ahead of Texas A&M, which won the head-to-head meeting earlier this year in College Station, Texas. Georgia fell to seven spots to No. 12 after the loss, but perhaps even more disappointing is being on the outside looking in of the SEC Championship race. 

This week’s AP balloting saw big gains for Northwestern and Indiana as well as the end of a run for Michigan. Since the start of the 2018 season, the Wolverines have been ranked in every AP Top 25 that they’ve been eligible for consideration (not counting the weeks the Big Ten teams were removed). After the loss to the Hoosiers, the Wolverines are unranked for the first time since Nov. 2017. 

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Check out the full AP Top 25 below: 

1. Alabama (59 first-place votes)
2. Notre Dame (2)
3. Ohio State (1)
4. Clemson
5. Texas A&M
6. Florida
7. Cincinnati 
8. BYU
9. Miami
10. Indiana
11. Oregon
12. Georgia
13. Wisconsin
14. Oklahoma State
15. Coastal Carolina
16. Marshall 
17. Iowa State
18. Oklahoma 
19. SMU
20. USC
21. Texas
22. Liberty
23. Northwestern
24. Auburn
25. Louisiana 

Dropped out: No. 21 Boise State, No. 23 Michigan 

Others receiving votes: North Carolina 85, Army 54, Tulsa 47, Utah 33, Washington 21, Arizona State 11, Purdue 8, Wake Forest 6, Boise State 5, Appalachian State 5, California 3, Maryland 3, Nevada 1