Oregon and Penn State each moved up a spot in the Associated Press college football poll Sunday following thrilling wins in high-profile games, and Top 25 newcomers Navy and Army are in the rankings together for the first time since 1960.
Texas strengthened its hold on No. 1 with its 31-point victory over Oklahoma. The Longhorns received 56 of 62 first-place votes, four more than last week and their most since they were a unanimous No. 1 in October 2008.
This weekend wasn’t as wild as the week before, when four of the top 11 teams were upset and only two teams held their spots in the ensuing rankings shuffle.
That’s not to say Week 7 was devoid of excitement.
Oregon’s 32-31 home win over Ohio State featured seven lead changes and moved the Ducks to No. 2 with the other six first-place votes. It’s their highest ranking since they ended the 2014 season at No. 2 after losing to the Buckeyes in the inaugural College Football Playoff championship game.
Penn State rose to No. 3 with a 33-30 overtime win at USC, the Nittany Lions’ highest ranking in seven years.
Penn State-USC was one of four games involving AP Top 25 teams that went to overtime Saturday, including three in the top 10.
Army, which beat UAB 44-10, and Navy, which was idle, broke through for their first simultaneous rankings since Oct. 3, 1960.
Their coinciding appearance that season lasted just one week. Army was 3-0 and ranked No. 18 before dropping two straight games and finishing 6-3-1. Navy had entered the rankings a week earlier, at No. 17, and ended the season 9-2 and ranked No. 4.
Army (6-0) and Navy (5-0) have not each been unbeaten at this point in a season since 1945, weeks after World War II ended and in the era when service academies were powerhouses of the sport.
POLL POINTS
LSU and Ole Miss were the biggest movers in the wake of the Tigers’ 29-26 overtime win. The Tigers went from No. 13 to No. 8, their first top-10 appearance since they were No. 5 in the 2023 preseason poll. Ole Miss, which lost for the second time in three games, dropped from No. 9 to No. 18.
No. 9 Iowa State, 6-0 for the first time since 1938, has its highest ranking since September 2021.
Tennessee had been in the top 10 in four straight polls before slipping to No. 11 following its 23-17 overtime win over Florida.
The SEC holds down eight spots in the AP Top 25. The Big Ten continues to have three teams in the top five — Oregon, Penn State and Ohio State — and six in the Top 25.
MOVING IN; MOVING OUT
Army and Navy are the only teams making their season debuts in the poll.
Utah, which has lost two straight, dropped out following its 27-19 loss at Arizona State.
Oklahoma, which had been No. 18 before its loss to Texas, is out of the AP Top 25 for the first time since the end of the 2022 season.
No. 5 Georgia at No. 1 Texas: This will be the third top-five matchup in four weeks following Georgia-Alabama and Ohio State-Oregon. The Bulldogs hope things go better than they did against Alabama. It’s only the fifth Georgia-Texas meeting since 1949 and the first since the Longhorns won 28-21 in the 2019 Sugar Bowl.
No. 7 Alabama at No. 11 Tennessee: Some of the shine has come off this matchup with Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt and its struggle against South Carolina and Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas and overtime grind against Florida.
No. 24 Michigan at No. 22 Illinois: This is the first time since 2001 that both are in the AP Top 25 entering their game. Some fans might wonder why either team is ranked this time. Two-loss Michigan, coming off an open date, has been dreadful on offense. The one-loss Illini held off lowly Purdue 50-49 in overtime at home.
OCEANPORT, N.J. — Journalism launched a dramatic rally to win the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Saturday at Monmouth Park.
It was Journalism’s first race since the Triple Crown. He was the only colt to contest all three legs, winning the Preakness while finishing second to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
Heavily favored at 2-5 odds, Journalism broke poorly under jockey Umberto Rispoli and wound up trailing the early leaders. He kicked into gear rounding the final turn to find Gosger and Goal Oriented locked in a dogfight for the lead. It appeared one of them would be the winner until Journalism roared down the center of the track to win by a half-length.
“You feel like you’re on a diesel,” Rispoli said. “He’s motoring and motoring. You never know when he’s going to take off. To do what he did today again, it’s unbelievable.”
Gosger held on for second, a neck ahead of Goal Oriented.
The Haskell victory was Journalism’s sixth in nine starts for Southern California-based trainer Michael McCarthy, and earned the colt a berth in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 1.
DOVER, Del. — Chase Elliott took advantage of heavy rain at Dover Motor Speedway to earn the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.
Elliott and the rest of the field never got to turn a scheduled practice or qualifying lap on Saturday because of rain that pounded the concrete mile track. Dover is scheduled to hold its first July race since the track’s first one in 1969.
Elliott has two wins and 10 top-five finishes in 14 career races at Dover.
Logano is set to become the youngest driver in NASCAR history with 600 career starts.
Logano will be 35 years, 1 month, 26 days old when he hits No. 600 on Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway. He will top seven-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Richard Petty by six months.
The midseason tournament that pays $1 million to the winner pits Ty Dillon vs. John Hunter Nemechek and Reddick vs. Gibbs in the head-to-head challenge at Dover.
The winners face off next week at Indianapolis. Reddick is the betting favorite to win it all, according to Sportsbook.
DOVER, Del. — NASCAR race team owner Denny Hamlin remained undeterred in the wake of another setback in court, vowing “all will be exposed” in the scheduled December trial as part of 23XI Racing’s federal antitrust suit against the auto racing series.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports to continue racing with charters while they battle NASCAR in court, meaning their six cars will race as open entries this weekend at Dover, next week at Indianapolis and perhaps longer than that in a move the teams say would put them at risk of going out of business.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell denied the teams’ bid for a temporary restraining order, saying they will make races over the next couple of weeks and they won’t lose their drivers or sponsors before his decision on a preliminary injunction.
Bell left open the possibility of reconsidering his decision if things change over the next two weeks.
After this weekend, the cars affected may need to qualify on speed if 41 entries are listed – a possibility now that starting spots have opened.
The case has a Dec. 1 trial date, but the two teams are fighting to be recognized as chartered for the current season, which has 16 races left. A charter guarantees one of the 40 spots in the field each week, but also a base amount of money paid out each week.
“If you want answers, you want to understand why all this is happening, come Dec. 1, you’ll get the answers that you’re looking for,” Hamlin said Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway. “All will be exposed.”
23XI, which is co-owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan, and FRM filed their federal suit against NASCAR last year after they were the only two organizations out of 15 to reject NASCAR’s extension offer on charters.
Jordan and FRM owner Bob Jenkins won an injunction to recognize 23XI and FRM as chartered for the season, but the ruling was overturned on appeal earlier this month, sending the case back to Bell.
Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, co-owns 23XI with Jordan and said they were prepared to send Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst to the track each week as open teams. They sought the restraining order Monday, claiming that through discovery they learned NASCAR planned to immediately begin the process of selling the six charters which would put “plaintiffs in irreparable jeopardy of never getting their charters back and going out of business.”
Hamlin said none of the setbacks have made him second-guess the decision to file the lawsuit.
“Dec. 1 is all that matters. Mark your calendar,” Hamlin said. “I’d love to be doing other things. I’ve got a lot going on. When I get in the car (today), nothing else is going to matter other than that. I always give my team 100%. I always prepare whether I have side jobs, side hustles, more kids, that all matters, but I always give my team all the time that they need to make sure that when I step in, I’m 100% committed.”
Reddick, who has a clause that allows him to become a free agent if the team loses its charter, declined comment Saturday on all questions connected to his future and the lawsuit. Hamlin also declined to comment on Reddick’s future with 23XI Racing.
Reddick, one of four drivers left in NASCAR’s $1 million In-season Challenge, was last year’s regular-season champion and raced for the Cup Series championship in the season finale. But none of the six drivers affected by the court ruling are locked into this year’s playoffs.
Making the field won’t be an issue this weekend at Dover as fewer than the maximum 40 cars are entered. But should 41 cars show up anywhere this season, someone slow will be sent home and that means lost revenue and a lost chance to win points in the standings.
“Nothing changes from my end, obviously, and nothing changes from inside the shop,” Front Row Motorsports driver Zane Smith said. “There’s not typically even enough cars to worry about transferring in.”
Smith, 24th in the standings and someone who would likely need a win to qualify for NASCAR’s playoffs, said he stood behind Jenkins in his acrimonious legal fight that has loomed over the stock car series for months.
“I leave all that up to them,” Smith said, “but my job is to go get the 38 the best finish I can.”
