Three Big Ten teams have risen into the top six of the Week 14 AP Poll and Amway Coaches Poll: undefeated Iowa, Michigan State and Ohio State. Oklahoma moved up two spots to third in the newest edition of AP Poll, and one spot to fourth in the the Coaches Poll. The Sooners recorded the weekend’s most impressive win, the second time in three weeks that they have done so. Nearly all playoff scenarios include the Sooners, and their poll ranking improved accordingly.
College football rankings: 3 Big Ten teams in top 6 of AP, Coaches Poll
America’s oldest conference suddenly has three of the top six teams in the country.
Elsewhere, Notre Dame fell from fifth to ninth in the AP and 10th in the Coaches Poll after a last-second loss to Stanford. The Cardinal, who play No. 24 USC for the Pac-12 championship next week, moved up to seventh in both polls. Losses by Baylor, Florida and Michigan sent top 15 stalwarts down the rankings, while Washington State, Mississippi State and UCLA fell out of the top 25 following rivalry losses. LSU, USC and Wisconsin returned to the last three spots in both polls.
The toughest weekend might have belonged to Toledo, which lost the MAC West Division championship, its position in the polls, a berth in the MAC Championship Game and a potential New Year’s Six bowl spot with a loss to Western Michigan, then lost coach Matt Campbell to Iowa State.
The College Football Playoff Committee releases its poll on Tuesday night.
| AP | Coaches | S&P+ | Massey | |
| 1 | Clemson (53) | Clemson (58) | Clemson | Alabama |
| 2 | Alabama (8) | Alabama (5) | Alabama | Oklahoma |
| 3 | Oklahoma | Iowa (1) | Oklahoma | Clemson |
| 4 | Iowa | Oklahoma | Ohio State | Ohio State |
| 5 | Michigan State | Michigan State | Florida State | Michigan State |
| 6 | Ohio State | Ohio State | Michigan | Iowa |
| 7 | Stanford | Stanford | Ole Miss | Notre Dame |
| 8 | North Carolina | North Carolina | Baylor | Stanford |
| 9 | Notre Dame | Florida State | Notre Dame | Baylor |
| 10 | Florida State | Notre Dame | Western Kentucky | Florida State |
| 11 | TCU | TCU | Michigan State | TCU |
| 12 | Baylor | Baylor | Navy | North Carolina |
| 13 | Northwestern | Northwestern | LSU | Ole Miss |
| 14 | Oklahoma State | Oklahoma State | West Virginia | Michigan |
| 15 | Oregon | Florida | Stanford | Oklahoma State |
| 16 | Ole Miss | Oregon | Florida | Florida |
| 17 | Houston | Ole Miss | Arkansas | Houston |
| 18 | Florida | Houston | Bowling Green | Navy |
| 19 | Michigan | Michigan | TCU | LSU |
| 20 | Temple | Utah | Washington | Oregon |
| 21 | Utah | Temple | USC | USC |
| 22 | Navy | Navy | UCLA | Northwestern |
| 23 | LSU | LSU | Mississippi State | Utah |
| 24 | USC | USC | Toledo | Tennessee |
| 25 | Wisconsin | Wisconsin | Oklahoma State | Wisconsin |
The four rankings used here
The Associated Press Top 25: The longest-running and best-respected human poll. Didn't have any official bearing on the latter years of the BCS, and won't have any official bearing on the Playoff. Expect it to set the course for the committee, however, as most outlets (including SB Nation) will use the AP's rankings as the standard until the committee takes over in November. Usually comes out on Sundays about 2 p.m. ET.
The USA Today Coaches Poll: Formerly part of the BCS, and now just a poll. It tends to be more conservative than the AP's. Though polling athletic departments in order to rank other athletic departments is dubious, we still want multiple human polls in here, and this is the other big one. Releases early Sunday afternoons.
The Massey computer composite: A collection of ... every rating out there, which will be included as soon as it is updated. By including it here, we're giving extra weight to the two human polls, since they're already two of the dozens of ratings included in the Massey. It changes over the course of the week as more rankings arrive.
Bill Connelly's S&P+ ratings: Connelly's efficiency- and explosiveness-based metric parses each team's performance and adjusts it for strength of opposition. These ratings ultimately become part of each FBS team's advanced statistical profile. They're entirely computer-generated and don't signal an agenda against anybody's favorite team.
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