Sunday afternoon, the AP Poll for Week 15 was released. Florida’s ranking, predictably and deservedly, took a tumble.
In the latest update in their ranking of the nation’s college football programs, the Gators were surpassed by five teams, including the in-conference rival Georgia Bulldogs. Dan Mullen’s squad had been hanging onto their position at the edge of playoff contention by a toenail, but the embarrassing and completely avoidable loss to the LSU Tigers on Saturday sealed their fate.
Everything about that game felt like a near-reality fiction as the situation slowly degraded into a worst-case scenario created from a myriad of small parts. Mother nature even seemed to get the memo and complied with a layer of dense fog, creating a setting more suitable for a dystopian young adult film than a football game.
Most of the other rankings stayed mostly the same, as the status quo has mostly congealed around college football. The only other team to have the rug pulled out from under them was the Miami Hurricanes, who plummeted from a spot inside the top 10 all the way down to 19th.
At the end of the day, it hurts to see Florida be dinged so badly, but they had been on the bubble of playoff contention for a while and voters never trusted the team’s defense in the first place. An awful performance against a team they should have beat was all that was needed to drop the Gators out of the top 10.
| RK | Team | PV | CONF | PTS |
| 1 | Alabama (10-0) | 1 | SEC | 1,550 (62) |
| 2 | Notre Dame (10-0) | 2 | ACC | 1,482 |
| 3 | Ohio State (5-0) | 3 | Big Ten | 1,405 |
| 4 | Clemson (9-1) | 4 | ACC | 1,388 |
| 5 | Texas A&M (7-1) | 5 | SEC | 1,286 |
| 6 | Cincinnati (8-0) | 7 | AAC | 1,248 |
| 7 | Indiana (6-1) | 8 | Big Ten | 1,140 |
| 8 | Iowa State (8-2) | 10 | Big 12 | 1,059 |
| 9 | Coastal Carolina (11-0) | 11 | Sun Belt | 994 |
| 10 | Georgia (7-2) | 12 | SEC | 968 |
| 11 | Florida (8-2) | 6 | SEC | 940 |
| 12 | Oklahoma (7-2) | 13 | Big 12 | 902 |
| 13 | USC (5-0) | 16 | Pac-12 | 774 |
| 14 | Brigham Young (10-1) | 14 | Independent | 724 |
| 15 | Northwestern (6-1) | 15 | Big Ten | 691 |
| 16 | North Carolina (8-3) | 20 | ACC | 631 |
| 17 | Louisiana-Lafayette (9-1) | 17 | Sun Belt | 566 |
| 18 | Iowa (6-2) | 19 | Big Ten | 502 |
| 19 | Miami (FL) (8-2) | 9 | ACC | 454 |
| 20 | Tulsa (6-1) | 18 | AAC | 408 |
| 21 | Texas (6-3) | 23 | Big 12 | 227 |
| 22 | Liberty (9-1) | 22 | Independent | 184 |
| 23 | Buffalo (5-0) | 24 | Mid-American | 183 |
| 24 | North Carolina State (8-3) | – | ACC | 137 |
| 25 | San Jose State (6-0) | – | Mountain West | 124 |
Others receiving votes:
Oklahoma State 83, Marshall 47, Boise State 12, UCF 11, Washington 9, Army 9, Auburn 8, TCU 3, Appalachian State 1
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