AP Top 25 College Football Poll 2014 Week 7: the Big Shakeup the Nation Was Due For Finally Happens
ByIt was the shakeup college football was due for, as all but two spots in week seven of the Associated Press Top 25 poll were in flux.
Only Florida State (1) and Georgia (13), while everyone else was affected by the events of Saturday's action. After crushing LSU at home, Auburn jumped up to second place from fifth and even fell short of Florida State by just two points.
The Seminoles regained some of their ever-fading first-place votes, but the series of upsets Saturday saw several of those formerly belonging to Oregon, Alabama and Oklahoma go to Auburn.
Hosting Texas A&M (14) and Alabama (7), respectively, Mississippi State and Ole Miss jumped up to take a share of third place on the poll. Six games this week were between two ranked opponents and of them, three ended with the lower-ranked team winning. What's more is five unranked teams beat ranked foes this week as well.
The result was a major shakeup in the poll, which was inevitable after the top five had gone unchanged since the preseason ranking.
Both recording wins, Baylor (5) and Notre Dame (6) benefitted from all the upsets at the top of the poll. After beating Oklahoma (11) and Oregon (12), respectively, TCU (9) and Arizona (10) each jumped 16 places, the latter of which coming from off the board.
Also leaping onto the rankings were Arizona State (20), Georgia Tech (22) and Utah (24). Leaving the rankings were LSU, USC, Wisconsin and BYU.
The season is not even half over and the College Football Playoff picture is cloudier than it was a week ago, but no team may be more optimistic than Mississippi State.
"You've never arrived, but I think we've changed the culture," coach Dan Mullen told ESPN Sunday. "And that was the goal coming in here, was we wanted to change the culture."