Editor’s note: Staff editor Matt Brown is in his fourth year on the AP Top 25 panel. Each week, he takes you inside the mind of a voter for insight into the process, noteworthy debates, poll history and more.
There once was a time when voters needed to give Alabama the benefit of the doubt.
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The Crimson Tide had gone 13-13 in the previous two seasons, including a November 2007 loss to Louisiana Monroe. But it was Alabama, and it was Nick Saban. AP poll voters tabbed Alabama No. 24 entering Saban’s second season in 2008.
It turns out they weren’t nearly optimistic enough: Alabama immediately routed No. 9 Clemson and hasn’t been ranked lower than 17th in the ensuing 201 polls and counting. In fact, Alabama has spent 96 percent of the past 12-plus years ranked in the top 10 (next best: Ohio State at 75.1 percent, according to College Poll Archive) and 86.1 percent of that time in the top five (next: Ohio State at 44.8 percent).
On Saturday, eight ranked teams lost, including six against unranked opponents. Oklahoma’s streak of 64 consecutive poll appearances ended at the hands of Iowa State, and teams bounced around, in and out of the Top 25 as a wild and unpredictable year continues. Six 0-0 ranked teams add an extra layer of complexity to the proceedings.
Meanwhile, No. 2 Alabama pulverized No. 13 Texas A&M 52-24, a three-and-a-half hour beatdown that felt anything but wild and unpredictable.
The first several editions of this column this season have focused on the unprecedented nature of this year’s polls and the challenges the circumstances present. This week, with the re-introduction of the Big Ten and Pac-12 covered already, let’s take a break and focus on the opposite: Amid the most perplexing stretch of AP poll voting ever, Alabama is still there, always present, seemingly impervious to chaos. It’s poll voters’ most reliable friend.
| My Rk | Team | Record | AP Rk |
|---|---|---|---|
1 (1) | 2-0 | 2 (2) | |
2 (2) | 3-0 | 1 (1) | |
3 (10) | 2-0 | 3 (4) | |
4 (3) | 0-0 | 6 (6) | |
5 (4) | 2-0 | 4 (3) | |
6 (5) | 2-0 | 5 (5) | |
7 (6) | 3-0 | 7 (8) | |
8 (8) | 0-0 | 9 (10) | |
9 (13) | 3-0 | 11 (15) | |
10 (20) | 3-0 | 15 (22) | |
11 (23) | 3-0 | 10 (17) | |
12 (11) | 2-0 | 8 (12) | |
13 (14) | 0-0 | 12 (14) | |
14 (18) | 2-0 | 19 (NR) | |
15 (22) | 2-0 | 14 (21) | |
16 (NR) | 4-0 | 18 (NR) | |
17 (7) | 1-1 | 13 (7) | |
18 (15) | 0-0 | NR (NR) | |
19 (16) | 0-0 | 16 (19) | |
20 (17) | 0-0 | 20 (23) | |
21 (NR) | 3-0 | 23 (NR) | |
22 (NR) | 2-1 | 24 (NR) | |
23 (NR) | 1-1 | NR (NR) | |
24 (NR) | 1-1 | NR (NR) | |
25 (NR) | 0-0 | 25 (NR) | |
NR (25) | 1-1 | 17 (20) | |
NR (21) | 1-1 | 21 (13) | |
NR (19) | 2-1 | 22 (9) |
Clemson is still No. 1, yes, and it deserves credit for mostly avoiding chaos in recent years. It’s been ranked every week since November 2014 (90 polls), and it has often been untouchable during that time. But even the Tigers lost to unranked Pitt and Syracuse teams en route to the Playoff in 2016 and 2017.
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Oklahoma, a Playoff conversation mainstay, has lost to unranked opponents in back-to-back weeks. Alabama has not lost once against an unranked team in 13 years, dating to that Louisiana Monroe game in 2007. The only other team with single-digit losses to unranked opponents since the start of the 2008 season is Ohio State, with nine, and that includes blowout defeats at the hands of Iowa and Purdue in 2017 and 2018.
Since 2008, Alabama has 17 more wins against ranked opponents than anyone else, and it has nine fewer losses against unranked teams than anyone else. Only seven unranked teams have even stayed within single digits of the Crimson Tide in that time.
| Team | Weeks in poll | Record | vs. Rk | vs. NR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
201 | 152-17 | 61-17 | 91-0 | |
190 | 130-34 | 42-23 | 88-11 | |
186 | 138-23 | 40-14 | 98-9 | |
185 | 121-38 | 44-23 | 77-15 | |
153 | 136-34 | 30-21 | 106-13 | |
148 | 121-38 | 32-20 | 89-18 | |
143 | 120-44 | 29-31 | 91-13 | |
142 | 119-43 | 22-27 | 97-16 | |
137 | 109-48 | 21-30 | 88-18 | |
132 | 114-45 | 26-28 | 88-17 |
Amid the upsets Saturday, fellow The Athletic college football editor Jason Starrett said, “Seeing all these upsets and late-game collapses always makes me think about just how machine-like Alabama and Clemson go about their business.”
For Alabama, it’s been like this for nearly all of the past 12-plus years.
It’s not as if recounting Alabama’s relentless dominance is new or surprising; it’s just that in a season unlike any other, when unpredictability may be at its highest, the Crimson Tide remain a reliable machine that can be ranked at or near the top of a ballot without thinking twice. The dominance has often felt monotonous, but every once in a while, it’s worth pausing, recognizing and putting into context just how impressive its run of sustained greatness has been.
• With a 28-point win against Texas A&M, Nick Saban now has 20 career wins by 20-plus points against AP top-15 opponents. That moves him into a tie with Tom Osborne for the most ever. Seventeen of those wins have come at Alabama.
• Saban has 29 double-digit wins against AP top-15 teams at Alabama; that’s more than the total of his single-digit wins and losses to AP top-15 teams combined. In other words, if Saban spotted every top-15 opponent nine points, he’d still be two games above .500 in such games at Alabama.
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• Saban won his 85th game against a ranked opponent, second only to Joe Paterno’s 86. Sixty-two of those ranked wins have come in 14 seasons at Alabama — that’s more than 33 Power 5 teams have in the entire 84-year history of the AP poll.
• According to College Poll Archive, Alabama’s streak of 201 consecutive poll appearances is the fourth-longest ever, behind Nebraska’s remarkable run of 348 polls (1981-2002), Florida State’s 211 (1989-2001) and Florida’s 209 (1990-2002). The poll streak itself is not unprecedented, though Alabama is likely to climb to second on the all-time list by the end of this season. However, through last year, Alabama has appeared at No. 1 for at least one week in 12 consecutive seasons, a streak five years longer than anyone else (Miami, 1988-92).
Year after year, the question about Alabama isn’t whether it should be ranked. The only question has been: When will it inevitably return to No. 1?
More AP Top 25 notes
• One possible retort to writing about Alabama’s dominance against top-15 teams: Why was Texas A&M a top-15 team in the first place? And that would be a fair criticism. I had the Aggies 21st last week after they barely stumbled past Vanderbilt, and this week I dropped them off my ballot altogether. I don’t like to punish a team for losing to a team I have ranked No. 1, but let’s be honest about this situation: “Top-15 Texas A&M” has been more of a theory than reality. Yes, the schedule has been brutal the past couple years, but at some point the Aggies are going to actually have to win a big game.
• Welcome to my ballot and the poll … Minnesota? Again, another reasonable question. If Minnesota didn’t return to the rankings last week, when the Big Ten became eligible, then why did it return now when it’s still 0-0? Two reasons: 1) Teams that are playing aren’t exactly earning those bottom-of-the-poll spots, and 2) An argument can be made that Minnesota scored the biggest win of the past week when it was announced that All-American wideout Rashod Bateman has officially opted back in. As others earn spots, I don’t anticipate Minnesota sticking on my ballot at 0-0 the next few weeks, but for now, I needed a 25th team.
• Could I have kept Texas A&M, Texas or LSU on my ballot? I’ve already covered Texas A&M, I’m finished giving Texas the benefit of the doubt and LSU is still only a week removed from getting torched by a Mississippi State team that turned around and lost to Arkansas, which had lost 20 consecutive SEC games. LSU could return to my ballot as soon as next week, but the events of this weekend didn’t make me consider bumping the Tigers up by default, like in the poll as a whole.
• I dropped Georgia to No. 10 last week amid concerns about the offense. The Bulldogs turned around and made a statement against Auburn, and I had no problem vaulting them back up to No. 3. Flexibility is always important, but especially so this year.
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• The combination of upsets and idle weeks led to a strange quirk: Of the 10 teams ranked from No. 5 to No. 14 in last week’s poll, only one (North Carolina — thanks to a late two-point stop at Boston College) actually recorded a win. Notre Dame, Ohio State, Miami, Penn State and Oregon were idle, and Auburn, Texas, UCF and Texas A&M lost. Throw in losses by Nos. 16, 18, 24 and 25, and it was difficult to fill out the ballot after the top eight or so. This is why Oklahoma State, Tennessee and BYU each moved up seven spots in the poll after beating Kansas, Missouri and Louisiana Tech, respectively.
• I finished my top 10 with Cincinnati and BYU. The Bearcats won ugly against USF, but their defense have been dominant. BYU has been dominant, period. Though its wins have come against Navy, Troy and Louisiana Tech, there’s something to be said for being consistently dominant in a season in which that’s been rare.
• The Big 12 is a mess, but at least Oklahoma State could be given a bit more credit for its ugly win against Tulsa, after the Golden Hurricane upset UCF. It was Tulsa’s first win against a ranked opponent since beating Hawaii in the 2010 Hawaii Bowl. Before that, Tulsa last beat a ranked team on the road in 1976 at Arkansas.
• Welcome back to the AP Top 25, Louisiana. The Ragin’ Cajuns were bumped out last week by the return of the Big Ten and Pac-12, but despite being idle, they are back in thanks to getting extra credit for beating Iowa State, which just beat Oklahoma. Both teams returned to the poll, in fact. Louisiana’s Wednesday game against Appalachian State has been postponed, but it’s now scheduled to play unbeaten Coastal Carolina on Saturday.
• SMU is back, too. The Mustangs beat Memphis — their first win against a ranked team not named TCU or Houston since 1986 — and are in the poll for the second consecutive year. Last season, they ended a 33-year poll drought.
• Iowa State beat Oklahoma in Ames for the first time since 1960. The top four of the AP poll at the time: Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Navy, with Rice, New Mexico State and Duke among the other ranked teams.
• The ACC has four teams in the top 10: No. 1 Clemson, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 7 Miami and No. 8 North Carolina. It’s the first time in ACC history that the conference has four top-10 teams at the same time. The 2004 and 2016 seasons are the only other times when the ACC has had four teams reach the top 10 at any point in the same year. Caveats apply: The ACC had fewer than 10 teams until 2004, and it’s at a bloated 15 teams this year with Notre Dame as a temporary member. Still, it’s a nice change of pace for the conference after only Clemson finished ranked in last year’s final poll.
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New arrivals: SMU (16), Louisiana (21), Iowa State (22), TCU (23), Tulsa (24) and Minnesota (25) are new to my ballot. SMU (18), Virginia Tech (19), Louisiana (23), Iowa State (24) and Minnesota (25) are new to the AP Top 25.
Falling out: Mississippi State (9), UCF (12), Texas A&M (21), Oklahoma (24) and LSU (25) fell off my ballot. UCF (11), Mississippi State (16), Oklahoma (18), Pitt (24) and Memphis (25) fell out of the AP Top 25.
Who I like more than the rest of the panel (difference of three-plus spots): BYU (No. 10 on my ballot vs. No. 15 in the AP Top 25), Virginia Tech (No. 14 vs. No. 19), USC (No. 18 vs. unranked), TCU (No. 23 vs. unranked), Tulsa (No. 24 vs. unranked)
Who I like less: North Carolina (No. 12 vs. No. 8), Auburn (No. 17 vs. No. 13), Wisconsin (No. 19 vs. No. 16), LSU (unranked vs. No. 17), Texas A&M (unranked vs. No. 21), Texas (unranked vs. No. 22)
(Photo: University of Alabama Athletics / Getty Images)
