My AP Top 25 vote: How much should Week 1 change college football rankings?

At long last, AP Top 25 voters like myself had real college football games to absorb over the long Labor Day weekend.

Although the preseason rankings came out on Aug. 12, our initial ballots were due way back on Aug. 1, before preseason camps truly got going. There has been a lot of time to think about — and second-guess — our highly subjective preseason votes. So how much should our rankings change after one week of games?

1. I’ll admit to being a No. 1 flip-flopper. Last year, I wavered on Georgia at No. 1 for much of the season, moving the Bulldogs up and down for a while. This year, I (probably) disrespected the Dawgs with a No. 3 preseason ranking behind Ohio State and Texas and swiftly regretted it. I still think Texas could beat Georgia in Austin in October — or in Atlanta in December — but in Week 1, Georgia earned the right to be No. 1 by pummeling Clemson. As Seth Emerson wrote, this team looks like it shares traits with Kirby Smart’s championship winners.

I was one of 11 voters who flipped to Georgia this week, giving it all but five first-place votes (Ohio State got the others).

The age-old question after a Week 1 drubbing is whether the winning team is that good or the losing team is that bad. (The answer is usually a bit of both.) Clemson may be far past its peak under Dabo Swinney, but Georgia nonetheless has an impressively dominant win against one of the ACC’s preseason favorites, making it a No. 1 team that’s hard for anyone to complain about.

Even if I still think my preseason No. 1 Ohio State has a good chance to win the national title.

2. Wins against ranked teams at the time of the game is an admittedly imperfect statistic, but it’s still a measure of how often teams win games that are perceived as big games — one of the ultimate measures of fan satisfaction. Georgia has become great at winning those big games, and it takes it a step further: It’s great at winning big games by a lot.

Saturday was Clemson’s worst defeat since 2013 against Florida State. It was the seventh time since 2021 that Georgia has beaten an AP-ranked opponent by 30-plus points. That’s more in less than four seasons than the total of six such wins that Georgia had from the start of the poll in 1936 through 2020.

3. Somehow Clemson didn’t have the worst start to the season among preseason ACC favorites. That honor goes to preseason No. 10 Florida State, which lost twice to unranked opponents before the second poll even came out. First came a 24-21 Week 0 loss to Georgia Tech in Ireland — the Yellow Jackets’ first win against a top-10 team since 2015 against FSU — and then came a 28-13 loss to Boston College on Labor Day. It’s BC’s first win against an AP top-10 team since 2014, although it comes with the largest possible asterisk because Florida State would not have been a top-10 team had a poll been conducted after Week 0.

Florida State is only the third team since the poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989 to go from the top 10 in the preseason to unranked in the next poll, according to the AP’s Ralph Russo. It joins 2007 Michigan (which lost to Appalachian State) and 2008 Clemson (which lost 34-10 to Alabama). As I wrote in August, an average of 1.7 preseason top-10 teams since 1989 have finished unranked each year. Florida State is well on its way, and it has dropped from a 54 percent chance to make the CFP in the preseason, according to The Athletic‘s model, to just 1 percent now.

4. Florida State received zero votes in the latest poll, while Clemson held onto just enough to stay in the rankings at No. 25. All is not necessarily lost for Clemson, especially with a 12-team CFP bracket. There’s no shame in losing to No. 1 Georgia, and we’ve seen teams come back from similar drubbings in recent years. In 2016, No. 20 USC lost to No. 1 Alabama by 46 points in its opener and went on to win the Rose Bowl and finish No. 3. In 2022, No. 11 Oregon opened with a 46-point loss to No. 3 Georgia and went on to finish No. 15.

But it was the Tigers’ worst loss in more than a decade, and they looked pretty similar to last year’s team, which spent much of the season outside the rankings before sneaking back in at the end. Somewhere around 25th seems right until proven otherwise.

5. Since joining the ACC in 2004, Miami has been ranked in the AP top 10 just 13.5 percent of the time, 26th best in that span, per College Poll Archive. In the previous 20 years, the Canes were ranked in the top 10 69.9 percent of the time, third best in that span. Could a long-awaited ACC title — and first top-10 finish since 2003 — be on the horizon? I bumped Miami up six spots to my top 10 at No. 8, although the consensus isn’t quite that optimistic yet about the Canes, who are ranked 12th in the poll. Miami appeared in the top 10 on 22 ballots, according to College Poll Tracker, with one ranking as high as third.

Yes, Florida has huge problems of its own, but the addition of quarterback Cam Ward and the struggles of FSU and Clemson create a wide-open path for a talented Miami team to win the ACC and capture a first-round Playoff bye. If the CFP were based on this AP poll, Miami would be the No. 4 seed.

6. USC joined Miami among former national powers making a jump into my top 10. Expectations were relatively low for USC in its first season in the Big Ten, but Lincoln Riley appears to have hit big on another quarterback in Miller Moss, and the Trojans looked tougher and more physical against LSU, which I had ranked in my preseason top 10.

I didn’t rank USC in the preseason, but I didn’t hesitate to vault it into my top 10 now. How real is USC’s growth on defense? It’s hard to say, given that Garrett Nussmeier picked apart the Trojans. But Nussmeier looks like a breakout star, too, and it was still one of the best wins of Week 1, with another Riley offense capable of big things. USC may not end up being a CFP team, but it can be a bigger threat than expected to the CFP hopes of opponents like Michigan, Penn State and Notre Dame after already delivering a big hit to LSU’s chances.

7. Penn State and Notre Dame were among the other teams that produced tangible top-10 takeaways from Week 1. The Nittany Lions found sorely needed explosiveness on offense with new coordinator Andy Kotelnicki in a runaway win at West Virginia. They are sixth on my ballot and eighth in the poll, and they should cruise to 5-0 before their trip to USC.

Notre Dame went to Texas A&M and showed off what should be a dominant defense, making just enough plays against a stellar Aggies defense to pull away late for a 10-point win in a hostile environment. The Irish are fifth on my ballot and fifth in the poll, with a fairly open path ahead — although poll newcomers Georgia Tech and Louisville are on the schedule and shouldn’t be overlooked.

8. Boston College thumping Florida State on Monday created an interesting voting conversation. Georgia Tech moved into the poll at No. 23, its first ranking since September 2015 to break the third longest-active Power 4 drought (only Rutgers and Vanderbilt have been unranked longer). Boston College just missed out and is second among those receiving votes.

I came close to ranking Georgia Tech but hesitated after Monday’s result. I don’t have a problem with rewarding Georgia Tech early, but if it gets the bump, shouldn’t Boston College be rewarded too? After all, the Eagles won more dominantly — in Tallahassee. But the Yellow Jackets appeared on 34 ballots, while the Eagles appeared on just 12.

9. The trickiest part about voting after Week 1 is dealing with teams that played lackluster games against lackluster opponents. What’s a real concern? What’s just a sleepy result that will quickly be forgotten?

I wavered on what to do with Oregon, which dominated Idaho statistically but won by only 10 points in a game that was tight in the fourth quarter. I ended up dropping Oregon three spots, mostly because of what happened behind it with Penn State (impressive win at West Virginia), Notre Dame (quality win at Texas A&M) and Alabama (won 63-0 against WKU). The poll result was similar, with the Ducks falling from third to seventh.

Michigan won by twice as much against Fresno State, 30-10, but the Wolverines’ problems felt more real, especially at quarterback. I dropped Michigan three spots from 11th to 14th, and we’ll find out a lot more about the Wolverines on Saturday against Texas in a top-10 showdown. It will be the first nonconference showdown between two AP top-10 teams in the Big House since Kordell Stewart’s Hail Mary lifted No. 7 Colorado past No. 4 Michigan in 1994.

10. How does my ballot differ from the AP poll? The top fives are the same, but there are few significant discrepancies beyond that.

Teams that I rank three-plus spots higher than the poll:

• No. 12 Miami (No. 8 on my ballot)
• No. 13 USC (No. 9 on my ballot)
• No. 17 Kansas State (No. 12 on my ballot)
• No. 24 NC State (No. 20 on my ballot)
• Memphis (No. 22 on my ballot)
• Boise State (No. 23 on my ballot)
• Texas A&M (No. 25 on my ballot)

Teams that I rank three-plus spots lower than the poll:

• No. 6 Ole Miss (No. 11 on my ballot)
• No. 9 Missouri (No. 8 on my ballot)
• No. 10 Michigan (No. 15 on my ballot)
• No. 18 LSU (No. 21 on my ballot)
• No. 22 Louisville (unranked on my ballot)
• No. 23 Georgia Tech (unranked on my ballot)
• No. 25 Clemson (unranked on my ballot)

I understand the angst, Ole Miss and Missouri fans. I’m not entirely convinced last season is repeatable for either, but as I showed with big movement for teams like Miami and USC, I’m more than ready to be corrected as results come in.

(Photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)