AP College Football Poll 2014: Complete Week 7 Rankings Released
Pure, unadulterated anarchy. And Katy Perry. If asked to describe Week 6 of the 2014 college football season, the discussion pretty much begins and ends there.
Four of the nation's Top Six teams are gone. Five of the Top Eight. In their place is the rise of Mississippi, the restoration of the national spotlight on one of the sport's biggest powers and the nation's two best teams from 2013 moving on unscathed as the world burns beneath them.
Florida State earned its first relaxing victory over an FBS opponent (Wake Forest) to make it a school-record 21 straight wins and stay at No. 1. With a nationally televised obliteration of LSU, Auburn re-ascends to its 2013 perch at No. 2. Looking at the remainder of The Associated Press Top 25—and Bleacher Report's iteration—a very clear picture of a college football world turned upside down begins to show:
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
| 1 | Florida State (35) | 5-0 | 1,461 | 1 | Auburn |
| 2 | Auburn (23) | 5-0 | 1,459 | 5 | Florida State |
| T3 | Mississippi State (2) | 5-0 | 1,320 | 12 | Baylor |
| T3 | Mississippi | 5-0 | 1,320 | 11 | (4) Mississippi State |
| 5 | Baylor | 5-0 | 1,258 | 7 | Notre Dame |
| 6 | Notre Dame | 5-0 | 1,186 | 9 | Ole Miss |
| 7 | Alabama | 4-1 | 1,060 | 3 | Michigan State |
| 8 | Michigan State | 4-1 | 981 | 10 | Alabama |
| 9 | TCU | 4-0 | 979 | 25 | Oklahoma |
| 10 | Arizona | 5-0 | 951 | NR | Oregon |
| 11 | Oklahoma | 4-1 | 904 | 4 | Georgia |
| 12 | Oregon | 4-1 | 888 | 2 | Arizona |
| 13 | Georgia | 4-1 | 854 | 13 | TCU |
| 14 | Texas A&M | 5-1 | 731 | 6 | Texas A&M |
| 15 | Ohio State | 4-1 | 534 | 20 | Ohio State |
| 16 | Oklahoma State | 4-1 | 527 | 21 | UCLA |
| 17 | Kansas State | 4-1 | 486 | 23 | East Carolina |
| 18 | UCLA | 4-1 | 460 | 8 | Oklahoma State |
| 19 | East Carolina | 4-1 | 344 | 22 | Kansas State |
| 20 | Arizona State | 4-1 | 325 | NR | Arizona State |
| 21 | Nebraska | 5-1 | 283 | 19 | Clemson |
| 22 | Georgia Tech | 5-0 | 235 | NR | Stanford |
| 23 | Missouri | 4-1 | 212 | 24 | Georgia Tech |
| 24 | Utah | 4-1 | 206 | NR | Nebraska |
| 25 | Stanford | 3-2 | 143 | 14 | Missouri |
Let's start in Eugene, where former No. 2 Oregon gave fans a preview of what was to come. Hamstrung by a depleted offensive line and a defense that could not get stops when it needed, the Ducks became the first upset victim in a 31-24 loss to Arizona. Terris Jones-Grigsby finished off a 15-play, 71-yard scoring drive with just under three minutes remaining and Oregon's drive stalled when Marcus Mariota was strip-sacked deep inside his own territory as the Wildcats upset the Ducks for the second straight season.
Freshman Anu Solomon threw for 287 yards and a touchdown, while Jones-Grigsby and Nick Wilson combined for 207 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. Under head coach Rich Rodriguez, Arizona is 5-0 for the first time since the height of the boy-band era.
"Last year it was really heartwarming because it was the seniors' last home game and it was improbable, of course," Rodriguez told reporters after the game, per the Associated Press' Anne M. Peterson, via The Detroit News. "This one, I don't know if anybody picked us. I don't know how many people were talking about us, but I bet you most of them weren't thinking this was going to happen, not on the road."
The Ducks will face a big test next week against UCLA as they try to get back into the College Football Playoff picture, a matchup that will define Oregon's season.
Mariota will have to play like the Heisman Trophy candidate he was made out to be entering the season as the Ducks look to right the ship.
All the excitement in Eugene (or, more accurately, the despair) was less than 48 hours before the world realized that this is Mississippi's world. We're just living in it. First, in Starkville, Mississippi State sent its second straight shot across the bow at a Top 10 SEC opponent. Dak Prescott accounted for five touchdowns (two passing, three rushing) and 336 yards as the Bulldogs defeated Texas A&M, 48-31, in a game that was a much bigger blowout than the score indicates.
Prescott, who has ascended to Heisman-favorite status, carved up the Aggies defense with a series of well-placed passes and grind-it-out runs. Tim Tebow comparisons were thrown out multiple times during the broadcast, both because Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen was Tebow's offensive coordinator at Florida and Prescott's performance was at times Tebowian.
As Prescott was again burrowing his way into conversations nationwide, the thrill was escaping Kenny Hill (sorry). Hill threw for 365 yards and four touchdowns, but two garbage-time scores undersold the depth of his struggles. He threw three interceptions, two of which came with the game still in hand, and found no success down the field as Mississippi State forced him to beat it underneath.
“Little miscues here and there, stuff that is easy to fix,” Hill told reporters, per Kate Hairopoulos of The Dallas Morning News. “You all will see it. We’re going to get it fixed.”
The Bulldogs ascend to No. 3 with the win. They will have a chance to make it three straight victories against Top 10 opponents next week when Auburn visits. The Tigers' 41-7 thrashing of LSU helped stop the bleeding from all the upsets across the conference.
Of course, for bleeding to stop, it has to begin. Which is where we head back to Mississippi. Oxford, to be exact, where the aforementioned Ms. Perry was swinging corn dogs, throwing Alabama headgear off Lee Corso's head and being the most important factor in Ole Miss' 23-17 upset of Alabama.
OK, maybe the latter point is an exaggeration. Perhaps we can credit Bo Wallace for his 251 yards and three touchdowns or the Rebels defense for clamping down in the fourth quarter, most notably when Senquez Golson got one foot down on a Blake Sims interception to seal the game. Ole Miss is 5-0 for the first time in more than five decades, per the Associated Press, via ESPN.com, with this win proving a seminal moment in Hugh Freeze's rebuilding effort.
With an affable charm and deft recruiting touch, Freeze took over his hometown team coming off a 2-10 season and led it to national prominence in three seasons. The Rebels coach has built his core around a suffocating defense and solid aerial attack led by Wallace, who avoided throwing an interception for the second time this season.
"He made some big-time plays," Freeze told reporters, per the Associated Press, via ESPN.com. "He just played so solid. On that last touchdown, that ball was right where it needed to be for us."
Speaking of big interceptions, Paul Dawson's 41-yard touchdown off an errant Trevor Knight throw was perhaps the biggest of the weekend. Dawson's return sparked an excellent defensive fourth quarter from TCU, which earned a 37-33 win over then-fourth-ranked Oklahoma. The Sooners and Horned Frogs engaged in an all-out shootout for the first 45 minutes, with both teams putting up 31 points and picking up yards in large chunks.
Dawson's pick ground that to a halt. Both teams ramped up defensively and gave their offenses a chance to win the game, but TCU stopped Samaje Perine on 4th-and-1 for no gain just outside the red zone to thwart the Sooners' last good chance to take control. Oklahoma's final drive ended with a failed Hail Mary that Knight threw out of the end zone.
"This isn't the defining moment of our season. There's a lot of football left," Knight told reporters, per the Associated Press, via ESPN.com. "Who knows what's down the road. It's early in the season, a one-loss team can still make it."
On the non-upset front, Everett Golson threw a touchdown pass with 1:01 remaining to hand Notre Dame a 17-14 win over Stanford. The Irish host North Carolina next week before their season-defining showdown with Florida State in Tallahassee on Oct. 18.
In East Lansing, Notre Dame rival Michigan State narrowly avoided squandering its 24-point fourth-quarter lead to beat Nebraska, 27-22. The Cornhuskers scored the game's final 19 points and had a potential winning drive fizzle out at the Spartans 37.
The swings were so big, so consuming that you would've been forgiven for being too exhausted to watch a Utah-UCLA game with a 10:30 p.m. ET start that promised to end the day with a whimper.
Welp.
A Tevin Carter pick-six in the first quarter instead set the tone for a perfect capper to a crazy Saturday, as the Utes went into Pasadena and earned a 30-28 upset. Devontae Booker rushed for 156 yards and a touchdown as the Utes pounded the ball 55 times on the ground to control the game's pace. Their game-winning drive, which culminated in a 29-yard Andy Phillips field goal, did not feature a single passing play.
"When you rush for 242 yards against the talent that UCLA has in the front seven, you've done some good work," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham told reporters, per the Associated press, via ESPN.com.
UCLA's defeat was a long time coming for a team that had lived dangerously all season. Four of the Bruins' five games so far have been decided by one score, with Brett Hundley and Co. somehow finding a way to overcome the previous three times.
In all, there were five ranked teams that lost to unranked opponents. BYU, USC and Wisconsin each fell victim to conference foes.
The Cougars, Trojans and Badgers lead the quartet of teams ousted from the Top 25. The other joining the club is LSU, which has dropped its first two SEC contests. Taking their places are Arizona, Arizona State, Georgia Tech and Utah.
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.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
