NCAA Football 2018 Rankings: Clemson's Slide Continues
Clemson's drop from No. 3 to No. 4 in the latest AP Top 25 might not seem like a big deal compared to, say, Stanford's plummeting seven spots after getting boat-raced by Notre Dame. However, it's getting harder to ignore the Tigers' slow-motion fall from grace.
When the season began, it was supposed to be Alabama and Clemson up top and everyone else fighting for third. All but five of the AP voters had the Tigers at either No. 1 or No. 2 in the preseason poll. No one had them lower than No. 4.
But while the Crimson Tide have further distanced themselves from the rest of the country with blowout after blowout, Clemson barely survived against Texas A&M and Syracuse.
The Tigers haven't lost any games (yet), but they have gradually lost a lot of ground. They received 96.8 percent of possible vote points in the preseason poll, but now their share is just 85.2 percent. They have fallen behind both Georgia and Ohio State by a wide margin, and LSU, Notre Dame and Oklahoma are all closing the gap, trailing the Tigers by fewer than 100 votes.
With just one game remaining against a currently ranked opponent, will Clemson be able to hang on to a spot in the Top Four, or could even an undefeated season leave the Tigers on the wrong side of the College Football Playoff cut line?
Maybe it's too early to be asking questions like those with two months to go in the regular season, but it's something to think about if Clemson continues to struggle with opponents that title contenders are supposed to beat with room to spare.
Read on for more about the most noteworthy moves in the AP poll.
Stanford Smashed, Suffers Significant Slip
1 of 6
After playing with fire a few too many times in recent weeks, Stanford finally got burned.
The Cardinal should have lost to Oregon in Week 4. Previous wins over San Diego State and UC Davis weren't displays of dominance either. But they were 4-0 and sitting at No. 7 in the AP poll in advance of a big showdown with No. 8 Notre Dame. An emphatic win would have made everyone forget about the slow starts in the first four weeks, possibly elevating Stanford to a projected Playoff team.
Instead, Bryce Love and Co. were outgained by a 550-229 margin in a 38-17 loss that was much uglier than the score would have you believe.
Stanford had 10 first downs in the entire game, only three of which came in the final 40 minutes. Even though the Cardinal had the ball down by just seven early in the fourth quarter, it never felt like they had a chance to come back and win. Notre Dame's defense was suffocating, led by a career day by Jerry Tillery, who had four sacks.
Usually when high-ranking teams face each other, the loser doesn't fall far in the rankings. (See: Auburn vs. Washington, Auburn vs. LSU, Ohio State vs. Penn State, etc.) But that's because the loser usually looks good in defeat. Stanford did not, and it paid the price, dropping seven spots to No. 14.
No Hard Feelings for Penn State
2 of 6
Penn State let a golden opportunity slip through its fingers.
For the first 27.5 minutes against Ohio State, the Nittany Lions were clearly the superior team. The Buckeyes failed to move the ball more than 18 yards on any of their first eight drives. Penn State led 13-0, but it felt like Trace McSorley had his team up by about five touchdowns.
But a Miles Sanders fumble late in the first half opened the door for Ohio State to get back into the game. The Buckeyes briefly took a 14-13 lead and then rallied again from a 26-14 fourth-quarter deficit to win 27-26.
In the losing effort, McSorley had more total yards (286 passing, 175 rushing) than Ohio State had (389) as a team. (When they needed five more yards to keep the game going, though, the Nittany Lions inexplicably put the ball in Sanders' hands instead of McSorley's.)
Penn State wasn't able to get the gigantic win, but it didn't lose much ground with AP voters. The Nittany Lions were No. 9 with 65.6 percent of possible votes last week, and now they're No. 11 with 61.3 percent of votes—still well within striking distance of the College Football Playoff conversation, given its remaining opportunities to prove something against Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Bye-Bye, BYU
3 of 6
To put it lightly, former No. 20 BYU looked like it was out of its league in a 35-7 loss to Washington.
The score probably should have been at least 49-0, because BYU didn't score its touchdown until the final minute of the game and because Washington had a pair of 13-play drives into the red zone that produced zero points due to missed field goals.
Nevertheless, this was a beatdown.
BYU had just two more first downs (seven) than Washington had touchdowns. This seems almost impossible when your quarterback completes 18 of 21 pass attempts, but that's how overmatched BYU was in this game.
Two weeks removed from shocking the world (and shaking up the Big Ten) with a road win over Wisconsin, BYU is once again an afterthought, gone from the rankings. The Cougars will get at least one more chance to spoil someone's season when they face Boise State in early November, but their odds of playing in a New Year's Six bowl game probably disappeared in Seattle.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Hokies Hiatus Only Lasts 1 Week
4 of 6
After losing 49-35 to Old Dominion in Week 4, Virginia Tech completely (and rightfully) dropped out of the AP Top 25 from its previous perch at No. 13.
But all it took was one 31-14 road win over No. 22 Duke for AP voters to show forgiveness to the Hokies.
Thanks in part to a bunch of other losses by teams at the back end of last week's poll, Virginia Tech is back in the rankings at No. 24.
Granted, Virginia Tech looked like a Top 15 team in this one. Had the ODU game never happened, we'd all be talking about the Hokies as the obvious top challenger to Clemson in the ACC. Even though the defense is painfully young, when it's clicking, it can shut down just about anyone.
More importantly, Kansas transfer Ryan Willis had a great first start at quarterback in place of Josh Jackson, who is out indefinitely with a broken leg. Against a Duke defense that had been allowing just 15.3 points per game, Willis threw for 332 yards and three touchdowns.
Still, it's a little surprising to see the Hokies back in the AP Top 25 after one of the most alarming losses in recent history.
Why not show some love to an undefeated team like Cincinnati or South Florida? Heck, even one-loss Appalachian State should be getting votes ahead of Virginia Tech, considering it has won its last three games by a combined margin of 146 points after taking Penn State to overtime. We don't have to indefinitely punish Virginia Tech for losing to Old Dominion, but a one-week exile isn't enough for a loss like that.
Serious Shakeup in the 20s
5 of 6
Only two teams in last week's Top 19 suffered a Week 5 loss, and both of those losses came in clashes between Top 10 squads. With the exception of Stanford's punishment for not even looking good against Notre Dame, there was minimal shuffling in the top 76 percent of the AP Top 25.
But it was chaos for the bottom six teams, as former No. 21 Michigan State was the only one to escape the week without a loss.
As previously mentioned, No. 20 BYU and No. 22 Duke both lost in unimpressive fashion. We also witnessed No. 24 California and No. 25 Texas Tech losses at home to higher-ranked opponents, as well as No. 23 Mississippi State's downright anemic performance on offense in a 13-6 loss to previously unranked Florida.
As a result, Michigan State moves up one spot to No. 20, and the bottom five teams are all new to the poll this week.
Undefeated Colorado and undefeated North Carolina State finally made it at No. 21 and No. 23, respectively. There are still two unblemished Group of Five teams (Cincinnati and South Florida) on the outside looking in, but all the power-conference unbeatens are ranked now.
For beating Mississippi State, Florida slides in between the Buffaloes and the Wolfpack at No. 22. This is the Gators' second stint in the AP Top 25 this season, and it's likely to only last for one week again since they face LSU next Saturday.
At the bottom, Nos. 24-27 were separated by just six votes. No. 24 Virginia Tech (89) and No. 25 Oklahoma State (88) edged out Boise State (86) and South Florida (83). Both the Hokies and the Cowboys are back in the Top 25 after a week away.
Kentucky's Surge Continues
6 of 6
Save for Colorado's jump from the first team in "others receiving votes" to No. 21, the biggest upward movement of the week belonged to the Kentucky Wildcats.
Benjamin Snell Jr. and Co.—aka B-B-B-Benny and the Cats—climbed from No. 17 to No. 13 with a 24-10 win over South Carolina. Snell led the way with 99 rushing yards and a touchdown, but it was once again the defense that won the game.
Kentucky picked off Jake Bentley three times and forced a Rico Dowdle fumble to dominate the turnover battle.
Two of the four turnovers led to 10 Kentucky points, but the most backbreaking one came in the fourth quarter. South Carolina was slowly but surely marching its way down the field on a 20-play drive that included three third-down conversions and two fourth-down conversions. But an injured Bentley forced a pass into double coverage on Deebo Samuel and got picked off by Mike Edwards.
The Wildcats didn't score on the subsequent drive, but that play effectively ended the game as they preserved a 14-point lead with less than four minutes to go.
This was Kentucky's fourth consecutive game holding an opponent to 16 points or fewer, and the world is starting to notice. The Cats will have a tough one on the road against Texas A&M next weekend, but the home game against Georgia on Nov. 3 continues to loom large as the biggest game for this program in at least four decades.
Kerry Miller covers college football and men's college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
