Penn State stays at No. 8 in the AP poll; Florida State drops out completely

Penn State opened its season with an impressive 34-12 victory at West Virginia, but the Nittany Lions failed to move up in the Associated Press college football poll.

The Lions are still No. 8 as they prepare for a home game against Bowling Green on Saturday at noon. The game will be televised by the Big Ten Network.

Florida State fell out of the top 25 on Tuesday after starting the season 0-2, becoming just the third team to go from preseason top 10 to unranked in the first regular-season poll since the rankings expanded to 25 in 1989.

Georgia remained No. 1, receiving 57 first-place votes after starting the season with a blowout of then-No. 14 Clemson. The Tigers hung on at No. 25.

Ohio State is No. 2 with five first-place votes. No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Alabama each moved up a spot, putting three Southeastern Conference teams in the top four along with Georgia.

No. 5 Notre Dame jumped two spots after opening the season with a victory at then-No. 20 Texas A&M, which fell out of the rankings.

Florida State has been the early season’s major disappointment. The defending Atlantic Coast Conference champion lost a Week 0 game in Dublin, Ireland, to ACC rival Georgia Tech and then dropped another league game Monday night at home to Boston College.

No other preseason top 25 team this year lost to an unranked opponent to open the season. Florida State did it twice as a double-digit favorite.

The other preseason top-10 teams to fall all the way out of the top 25 after Week 1 in the past 35 years were Michigan in 2007 after famously losing to Appalachian State as No. 5 and Clemson in 2008. The Tigers were No. 9 but opened with a blowout loss to Alabama and tumbled out of the rankings.

Mississippi remained at No. 6. Oregon slipped four spots to No. 7 after winning a close game with Idaho. Penn State stayed at No. 8. Missouri moved up two spots to No. 9 to give the SEC five teams in the top 10. Michigan dropped one spot to No. 10.

Georgia Tech’s 2-0 start has the No. 23 Yellowjackets ranked for the first time since 2015.

Because Florida State started its season a week before most of the country, it moves into an exclusive club of teams that began their seasons 0-2 with each loss coming while ranked in the top 10.

Notre Dame was the last to do it in 2022, when the Fighting Irish began the season No. 5, lost at No. 2 Ohio State in their opener, and then were upset at home the next week by Marshall while ranked eighth. The Irish went on to finish 9-4.

Ohio State opened the 1986 season ranked ninth and lost back-to-back games to ranked opponents, No. 5 Alabama and No. 17 Washington. The Buckeyes were No. 10 when they played the Huskies. Ohio State finished 10-3.

The 1967 Texas team and TCU from 1952 also started 0-2 while ranked in the top 10 of both games.

Florida State is only the second ranked team to lose twice before the first regular-season poll was released, joining 1951 Kentucky. The Wildcats went from No. 6 to No. 17 while going 1-2 to start the season, losing at No. 11 Texas and at Mississippi.

Florida State gets a weekend off before resuming its schedule with home games against Memphis and new ACC member California before a trip to SMU followed by a home game against Clemson.

“You’ve got a football team that nobody envisioned ever being where we are and having disappointment, having failure, but I do believe in what this team can do,” coach Mike Norvell said after the BC loss. “I believe in what this team can accomplish."

The big movers upward in the top 25 were Miami and Southern California.

The Hurricanes jumped seven spots to No. 12 after routing Florida at The Swamp and have their best ranking since cracking the top 10 late in the 2020 season.

No. 13 USC moved up 10 places after beating LSU with a late touchdown Sunday night in Las Vegas. The loss dropped LSU to No. 18.

The Trojans started last season at No. 6, but ended up unranked after a disappointing 8-5 season with 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.

The only other team to move into the rankings this week, along with Georgia Tech, was fellow ACC school Louisville. The Cardinals were among the top unranked voter-getters in the preseason and now sit at No. 22.