The Crimson Tide received 25 first-place votes and 1,523 points in the AP Top 25, two points more than the Bulldogs. Georgia received 28 first-place votes to become the first team since Alabama in November 2019 to have the most first-place votes but not be No. 1.
The Tide were No. 2 behind LSU that year, with 21 first-place votes to the Tigers’ 17.
The last time there was a two-point margin between Nos. 1 and 2 was Nov. 1, 2020, when Clemson was ahead of Alabama. There have been three other polls with a two-point margin at the top since 2007.
Ohio State remained third, but the Buckeyes also gained some ground on the top two, getting 10 first-place votes.
The Crimson Tide started the season at No. 1, but the defending national champion Bulldogs took the top spot away from their SEC rivals after Week 2 when Alabama needed a late field goal to beat Texas.
The Bulldogs remain unbeaten but needed a fourth-quarter rally to beat four-touchdown underdog Missouri on Saturday night. Earlier in the day, the Crimson Tide managed to pull away from Arkansas in the second half without Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young.
Young sprained his throwing shoulder in the first half and missed most of the game in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
No. 4 Michigan, No. 5 Clemson and No. 6 USC all won and held their places this week, though the Wolverines and Tigers are now separated by just three points.
The rest of the AP Top 25 got a major overhaul after 10 ranked teams lost, five to unranked opponents. That cleared the way for seven teams to move into the rankings this week, most notably No. 19 Kansas.
The Jayhawks are ranked for the first time since Oct. 18, 2009, which was the longest drought for a team currently in a Power 5 conference.
POLL POINTS
The closest margin between Nos. 1 and 2 in AP poll history is zero. Oklahoma and Miami tied for No. 1 in the 2002 preseason poll, and Miami and Washington shared the top spot in mid-October 1992.
The last time there was a one-point margin between the top two teams was 1992, when the Hurricanes and Huskies were separated by a point in the weeks before and after they were tied.
With Kansas back in the rankings, the longest poll-appearance drought belongs to Illinois, which was last ranked in 2011. The Illini have positioned themselves to make the leap with a 4-1 start heading into their home game against Iowa next week.
The voters generally decided to start from scratch at the back half of the rankings, flipping seven teams.
• No. 17 TCU is in the rankings for the first time since a brief stay in 2019 at 25th.
• No. 18 UCLA is off to its first 5-0 start since 2013.
• No. 19 Kansas stayed unbeaten by knocking off Iowa State. The Jayhawks last started 5-0 in that 2009 season then proceeded to drop their next six games and fall to the bottom of major college football for more than a decade.
Both Kansas schools are ranked for the first time since Oct. 14, 2007.
• No. 22 Syracuse improved to 5-0 with an easy victory against Wagner and finally cracked the rankings. The Orange are ranked for the first time since early in the 2019 season.
• No. 23 Mississippi State has been ranked for only one week (after the first regular-season game of 2020) since the end of 2018 season.
Both Mississippi SEC schools are ranked for the first time since Nov. 11, 2015.
• No. 24 Cincinnati is the one team to enter the rankings this week that already had been in this season. The Bearcats fell out after a Week 1 loss at Arkansas and has won four straight since.
• No. 25 LSU has its first ranking under coach Brian Kelly. The Tigers have won four straight, including two SEC games, since losing a heartbreaker to Florida State on Labor Day weekend.
OUT
Among the seven teams to drop out of the AP Top 25, five of them will be unranked for the first time this season: Oklahoma, Baylor, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Pittsburgh.
Florida State and Minnesota had brief stays in the AP Top 25. The Seminoles and Gophers were teams on the rise for a week, and then both lost at home.
Louisiana State Police have issued an arrest warrant for former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy, who is accused of causing a fatal crash that killed a 78-year-old man on Dec. 17 and then fleeing the scene without rendering aid or calling authorities.
Louisiana State Police said on Friday that Lacy will be charged with negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run and reckless operation of a vehicle.
Police said they have been in contact with Lacy and his attorney to turn himself in.
According to a news release from state police, Lacy was allegedly driving a 2023 Dodge Charger on Louisiana Highway 20 and “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated no-passing zone.”
“As Lacy was illegally passing the other vehicles, the driver of a northbound pickup truck abruptly braked and swerved to the right to avoid a head-on collision with the approaching Dodge,” a Louisiana State Police news release said.
“Traveling behind the pickup was a 2017 Kia Cadenza whose driver swerved left to avoid the oncoming Dodge Charger. As the Kia Cadenza took evasive action to avoid impact with the Dodge, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Kia Sorento.”
Police alleged that Lacy, 24, drove around the crash scene and fled “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash.”
Herman Hall, 78, of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was a passenger in the Kia Sorrento, later died from injuries suffered in the crash, according to state police.
The drivers of the Cadenza and Sorento also sustained moderate injuries, according to police.
Lacy played two seasons at Louisiana before transferring to LSU in 2022. This past season, he had 58 catches for 866 yards with nine touchdowns and declared for the NFL draft on Dec. 19, two days after the crash.
The legal efforts to unionize college athletes appear to be running out of steam this month as a new Republican-led administration gets set to take over the federal agency in charge of ruling on employment cases.
A players’ advocacy group who filed charges against the NCAA, Pac-12 and USC that would have potentially opened the door for college players to form a union decided Friday to withdraw its complaint. Their case – which was first filed in February 2022 – was one of two battles against the NCAA taken up by the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Earlier this week, an administrative law judge closed the other case, which was filed by men’s basketball players at Dartmouth.
The National College Players Association, which filed its complaint on behalf of USC athletes, said the recent changes in state law and NCAA rules that are on track to allow schools to directly pay their players starting this summer caused them to reconsider their complaint.
“[T]he NCPA believes that it is best to provide adequate time for the college sports industry to transition into this new era before football and basketball players employee status is ruled upon,” the organization’s founder Ramogi Huma wrote in the motion to withdraw.
The NCAA and its four power conferences agreed to the terms of a legal settlement this summer that will allow schools to spend up to roughly $20.5 million on direct payments to their athletes starting next academic year. The deal is scheduled to be finalized in April.
College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have remained steadfast in their belief that athletes should not be considered employees of their schools during a period when college sports have moved closer to a professionalized model.
Some industry stakeholders believe that the richest schools in college sports will need to collectively bargain with athletes to put an end to the current onslaught of legal challenges facing the industry. Currently, any collective bargaining would have to happen with a formal union to provide sufficient legal protection. Some members of Congress say they are discussing the possibility of creating a special status for college sports that would allow collective bargaining without employment. However, Congressional aides familiar with ongoing negotiations told ESPN that influential Republican leaders in Congress are firmly against the idea.
The NLRB’s national board previously declined to make a ruling on whether college athletes should be employees in 2015 when a group of football players at Northwestern attempted to unionize. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s leader during the Biden administration, signaled an interest in taking up the athletes’ fight to unionize early in her tenure. Abruzzo is not expected to remain as the NLRB’s general counsel during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Under Abruzzo, the agency’s regional offices pushed both the Dartmouth and USC cases forward in the past year. Dartmouth players got far enough to vote in favor of forming a union in March 2024, but were still in the appeals process when they decided to end their effort last month.
The only remaining legal fight over employee status in college sports is a federal lawsuit known as Johnson v. NCAA. That case claims the association is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, which does not guarantee the right to unionize but instead would give athletes some basic employee rights such as minimum wage and overtime pay. That case is currently working its way through the legal process in the Third Circuit federal court.
College Football Senior Writer for ESPN. Insider for College Gameday.
Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, the nation’s leading passer in 2024, told ESPN on Friday that he will declare for the NFL draft and has decided to no longer pursue an NCAA eligibility waiver for another season.
This decision ends what he called a “crazy ride” through college football that saw him go 22-4 as a starting quarterback at Syracuse and Ohio State. McCord led the nation with 4,779 passing yards in 2024 and led Syracuse to a 10-win season and a victory over Washington State in the Holiday Bowl.
He broke DeShaun Watson’s ACC career passing record in 2024, and the 10-win season marked the program’s first since 2018.
“I think the biggest thing for me was, obviously, I felt like I put together a really good year,” McCord told ESPN. “With the way everything played itself out and what I’m hearing in terms of feedback at the draft, it just makes sense to go, after weighing all the options out.”
McCord finished fourth nationally with 34 touchdown passes this year, and his statistical dominance and strong team play helped him considerably in the eyes of NFL evaluators. McCord profiles as middle-rounds NFL pick right now, with the process of playing the East-West Shrine Bowl and meeting with teams through the draft process gives him a runway to improve his stock. He is not currently listed among the top 10 draft-eligible quarterbacks by ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr.
The move to Syracuse proved beneficial for McCord, as the program under first-year coach Fran Brown and the offense under coordinator Jeff Nixon gave McCord a forum to thrive. He’s said he’ll be “forever indebted” to the school and staff for his time there.
“It was a little bit of leap of faith going to Syracuse,” McCord said. “Coming off the season I had at Ohio State and going in portal and having no idea where you are going to be, it was a scary situation to be in.”
He said he’s grateful for the journey from going 11-1 as the starter at Ohio State to the uncertainty of the portal to having a historic final year of college at Syracuse.
“The biggest thing is how thankful I am for Syracuse for bringing me in,” McCord said. “I’m thankful to the coaches, my teammates and the fans.”
McCord, who graduated from Syracuse, expressed his appreciation for Brown and Nixon. He said the offense of Nixon, who is an experienced NFL coach, helped prepare him for the next step he’s about to take.
“He’s one of the smartest football minds I’ve ever had a chance to be around,” McCord said. “He put me in position to go out and have success. His playcalling, I think, was phenomenal, especially in situations where we had to have it. I owe a lot of my success to him.”
McCord believes the adversity of his journey shaped him for the NFL.
“I think I learned a lot about myself throughout the process,” McCord said, “and it was really the first time I faced a big moment of adversity having to go in the portal. It’s definitely been a crazy, wild ride. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in world.”
McCord played in five games as a freshman at Ohio State, one more than the NCAA minimum for a redshirt season. He had filed a waiver to challenge that, but he said he has since decided to push forward and enter the NFL.