Florida State fell out of the Associated Press college football poll 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 and did not receive a single vote from the AP poll panel.
In the past 35 years, the other preseason top-10 teams to fall out of the Top 25 after Week 1 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.
Poll points
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 to on 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 the season 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.”
Moving up
The big risers 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.
In and out
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 vote-getters in the preseason and now sit at No. 22.
Conference call
Despite Florida State and Clemson starting the season 0-3, the ACC has one more team in this week’s rankings than it did last time:
SEC – 8 (Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14, 16, 18).
Big Ten – 6 (Nos. 2, 7, 8, 10, 13, 21).
ACC – 5 (Nos. 12, 22, 23, 24, 25).
Big 12 – 5 (Nos. 11, 16, 17, 19, 20).
Independent – 1 (No. 5).
Ranked vs. ranked
No. 3 Texas at No. 10 Michigan. The first regular-season meeting ever is a top-10 matchup at the Big House.
No. 14 Tennessee vs. No. 24 NC State in Charlotte, North Carolina. Interesting SEC-ACC ranked matchup.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, like all football coaches, wants his players to show up on time, work hard and play their best.
Oh, and another thing: Don’t dance on TikTok.
“They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it,” he said Monday. “I’m just banning them from dancing on it. It’s like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever, and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok, ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.”
Making TikTok dance videos is a popular activity among high school- and college-age users of the social media platform. Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, Boise State star Ashton Jeanty and Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola are among college football players who have posted dance videos.
Rodriguez is beginning his second stint as Mountaineers coach. He said he has talked to his players about the tendency in society to emphasize the individual rather than the team and that banning TikTok dancing is something he can do to put the focus where he thinks it belongs.
“I’m allowed to do that. I can have rules,” he said. “Twenty years from now, if they want to be sitting in their pajamas in the basement eating Cheetos and watching TikTok or whatever the hell, they can go at it, smoking cannabis, whatever. Knock yourself out.”
As for now, he said: “I hope our focus can be on winning football games. How about let’s win the football game and not worry about winning the TikTok?”
LOS ANGELES — Mike Battle, an All-American defensive back and a member of USC‘s 1967 national championship team who later played two seasons for the New York Jets, has died. He was 78.
He died of natural causes on March 6 in Nellysford, Virginia, the school said Tuesday.
In 1967, Battle led a USC defense that allowed only 87 points all season. The Trojans were 26-6-1 and won three conference titles during his three-year career. Battle played in the 1967, 1968 and 1969 Rose Bowl games, all won by the Trojans.
Battle was USC’s annual punt return leader in each of his three seasons and still owns the school record for most punts returned in a season. He was the NCAA statistical champion in 1967, when he had 49 returns for 608 yards, a 12.4-yard average. He also holds the school mark for most punts returned, with 99 during his three years.
He was chosen in the 12th round of the 1969 NFL draft by the Jets and played for two seasons in 1969 and 1970.
Battle appeared in the 1970 film “C.C. and Company,” a biker film starring Jets teammate Joe Namath and actor Ann-Margret.
He is survived by his wife Laura and children Christian Michael, Hunter, Frank, Michael, Kathleen, Murphy and Annie.