Florida State fell out of the Associated Press college football poll on Tuesday after starting the season 0-2, becoming only the third team to slip from the preseason top 10 to the unranked regular season poll since the rankings were expanded to No. 25 in 1989.
Georgia remained No. 1, receiving 57 first-place votes after opening the season with a commanding win over then-No. 14 Clemson. The Tigers held on to No. 25.
Ohio State is No. 2 with five first-place finishes. No. 3 Texas and No. 4 Alabama each moved up one spot, making three Southeastern Conference teams in the top four, along with Georgia.
Notre Dame (No. 5) moved up two spots after opening the season with a win at then-No. 20 Texas A&M, which had fallen out of the rankings.
Florida State has been the biggest disappointment to start the season. The defending Atlantic Coast Conference champions lost a game in Dublin, Ireland, to ACC rival Georgia Tech in Week 0 and then lost another league game at home to Boston College on Monday night.
No other preseason top-25 team has lost to an unranked opponent in its season opener this year. Florida State did it twice as a double-digit favorite.
The other preseason top-10 teams to fall entirely out of the top 25 after Week 1 in the last 35 years were Michigan in 2007 after its famous loss to Appalachian State as a No. 5 seed and Clemson in 2008. The Tigers were No. 9 but lost heavily to Alabama early on and fell out of the rankings.
Mississippi remained at No. 6. Oregon slipped four spots to No. 7 after a narrow win over Idaho. Penn State remained at No. 8. Missouri moved up two spots to No. 9, so the SEC now has five teams in the top 10. Michigan dropped one spot to No. 10.
Georgia Tech’s 2-0 start puts the Yellowjackets in 23rd place in the rankings for the first time since 2015.
Survey points
Because Florida State began its season a week before most of the country, the team now joins the exclusive club of teams that began their season 0-2 and suffered every loss while ranked in the top 10.
Notre Dame was the last team to do so in 2022. The Fighting Irish began the season as the No. 5 seed, losing their opening game to No. 2 Ohio State and losing at home to Marshall the following week despite being ranked No. 8. The Irish finished the season 9-4.
Ohio State began the 1986 season ranked 9th and lost two straight games to higher-ranked opponents Alabama (5th) and Washington (17th). The Buckeyes were ranked 10th when they played the Huskies. Ohio State finished the season 10-3.
The 1967 Texas team and 1952 TCU also started 0-2, but were ranked in the top 10 in both games.
Florida State is only the second team to suffer two losses before the first regular season poll was released, joining Kentucky in 1951. The Wildcats dropped from No. 6 to No. 17 after starting the season 1-2, losing to No. 11 Texas and Mississippi.
Florida State has a weekend off before resuming its schedule with home games against Memphis and new ACC member California before a trip to SMU and then a home game against Clemson.
“You have a football team that nobody expected would ever be where we are now and that has experienced disappointments and failures, but I believe in what this team can do,” coach Mike Norvell said after the loss to BC. “I believe in what this team can do.”
Going up
The biggest climbers in the top 25 were Miami and Southern California.
The Hurricanes jumped seven spots to 19th after their win over Florida at The Swamp, their best ranking since breaking into the top 10 toward the end of the 2020 season.
No. 13 USC rose 10 spots after beating LSU with a late touchdown on Sunday night in Las Vegas. The loss dropped LSU to No. 18.
The Trojans started last season ranked No. 6 but finished unranked after a disappointing 8-5 season featuring 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams.
In and out
The only other team to move up in the rankings this week besides Georgia Tech was ACC school Louisville. The Cardinals were among the most voted unranked teams in the preseason and are now ranked 22nd.
Conference call
Although Florida State and Clemson started the season 0-3, the ACC has one more team in the rankings this week than last time:
