Cincinnati moved up to No. 2 behind Georgia in The Associated Press college football poll Sunday, the first time a team from outside the traditional power conferences has been ranked that high since 2010.
The Bulldogs remained a unanimous No. 1 with 63 first-place votes in the AP Top 25, and the Bearcats inched up a spot, taking advantage of Iowa's loss to Purdue on Saturday.
The Hawkeyes dropped nine places to No. 11, and the Boilermakers moved into the rankings at No. 25, snapping the longest current AP poll drought for a Power 5 school. The Boilermakers were last ranked in 2007.
Oklahoma is No. 3, followed by Alabama and Ohio State.
Unbeaten Cincinnati from the American Athletic Conference reached a new best ranking in program history and is the first team to reach No. 2 from outside a Power 5 or BCS conference since TCU finished second in 2010, when it went undefeated as a member of the Mountain West.
Boise State, then a member of the Western Athletic Conference, spent three weeks at No. 2 in 2010.
Oklahoma State moved up to No. 8 after beating Texas and is in the top 10 for the first time since early in the 2020 season.
POLL POINTS
Seven ranked teams lost Saturday, including five to unranked teams, increasing the total on the season to 47.
In each of the past three weeks, a top-three team has lost to an unranked team, starting with Stanford defeating then-No. 3 Oregon on Oct. 2.
Texas A&M knocked off then-No. 1 Alabama last week before Iowa was upset at home.
IN
All those losses by ranked teams shook up the back half of the rankings and put five new teams in the poll this week, including one that has never been there before.
• No. 19 Auburn (5-2) is back in the rankings after a road victory over Arkansas.
• No. 20 Baylor (6-1) returned to the Top 25 with a convincing victory over BYU.
• No. 23 Pittsburgh (6-1) is ranked for the first time this season. Quarterback Kenny Pickett and the Panthers thumped Virginia Tech on Saturday. Pitt has been briefly ranked in four of the past six seasons but never higher than 21st.
• No. 24 Texas-San Antonio (7-0) is unbeaten and ranked for the first time in the history of the program. The Roadrunners have been playing at the highest level of Division I football since only 2012. They are the first Conference USA team to make the Top 25 this season.
• With Purdue (4-2) slipping in the rankings, Kansas takes over the top spot on the list of longest current runs without being ranked among Power 5 schools. The Jayhawks were last ranked in October 2009. Up next are Illinois, Rutgers, Oregon State and Vanderbilt.
OUT
Florida fell out of the rankings for the first time this season after losing to LSU on Saturday.
That leaves the state of Florida with zero ranked teams, a rare occurrence in recent poll history. The last time it happened was 2011, when the Sunshine State did not have a ranked team six times.
• Arkansas' three-game losing streak has dropped the Razorbacks from the rankings after a five-week run.
• Arizona State is out again after losing to Utah.
• BYU lost for the second straight week and is unranked for the first time since last month.
• Texas is back to being unranked after the Longhorns blew a double-digit, second-half lead for the second consecutive week.
CONFERENCE CALL
Big Ten - 6 (Nos. 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 25)
SEC - 6 (Nos. 1, 4, 12, 15, 17, 19)
ACC - 3 (Nos. 16, 18, 23)
Big 12 - 3 (Nos. 3, 8, 20)
American - 2 (Nos. 2, 21)
Pac-12 - 1 (No. 10)
Conference USA - 1 (No. 24)
Mountain West - 1 (No. 22)
Sun Belt - 1 (No. 14)
Independent - 1 (No. 13)
RANKED vs. RANKED
For the first time this season, the college football schedule has no games matching ranked teams.