AP Top 25: Oregon overtakes Georgia for No. 1 while Alabama falls and Vanderbilt replaces Michigan

Oregon moved to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 college football poll on Sunday for the first time since 2012 after Texas became the third-best team in the country to lose to Georgia this season. No. 15 Alabama fell to its lowest ranking in 14 years after losing to Tennessee.

The Ducks, who eliminated Purdue on Friday, received 59 first-place votes and moved from No. 2 to the top spot, and Georgia jumped three spots to No. 2 after its win at Texas. Georgia received two first-place votes and the Longhorns slipped to No. 5. No. 3 Penn State and No. 4 Ohio State retained their spots after being idle, and No. 6 Miami, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 8 LSU, No. 9 Clemson and No. 10 Iowa State round out the top 10 away.

The Volunteers improved four spots after beating Alabama, and the Crimson Tide fell eight spots. The last time Alabama was ranked this low was in 2010, when it fell to 17th place after losing the regular-season finale to eventual national champions Auburn and Cam Newton. The Crimson Tide finished 10-3 this season and ranked No. 10 in the country, their lowest finish in the Nick Saban era after his first team was unranked in 2007.

No. 25 Vanderbilt climbed into the rankings for the first time since 2013, and reigning national champion Michigan is out of the rankings for the first time in three years.

Others receiving votes: Washington State 46, Syracuse 15, UNLV 5, Duke 2, South Carolina 1, Nebraska 1, Liberty 1

No. 1 changes hands again

Oregon is the fourth team to be ranked No. 1 this season, the most No. 1s in a single season since 2014.

Georgia began the season as the No. 1 seed, but was pushed off the top spot in mid-September and replaced by Texas after the Longhorns won at Michigan and the Bulldogs struggled with Kentucky. Alabama secured the No. 1 seed for a week by beating Georgia, but then lost to Vanderbilt and handed the top spot back to Texas. That took two weeks.

Georgia's 15-point victory Saturday night in Austin was the largest margin of victory against a team ranked No. 1 in the AP poll in the regular season since Oklahoma beat Nebraska 31-14 in 2000 – and it was the largest on the road since Notre Dame defeated Pitt 31-16 in 1982.

This makes Oregon the first Big Ten team to be ranked No. 1 during the regular season since Ohio State in 2015. Michigan didn't become No. 1 until the conference championship games last season. The Ducks have been No. 1 in the country for a total of eight weeks, including one week in 2012 and seven in 2010. — Ralph Russo, national college football writer

In and out

Vanderbilt's last finish was at the end of the 2013 season under coach James Franklin. The Commodores had the second-longest active AP poll drought among power conference teams behind Rutgers, which had not been ranked since November 2012.

Vanderbilt (5-2) has won three straight games and hosts Texas next week in the program's first game with two ranked teams since Oct. 18, 2008, when the No. 22 Commodores lost to No. 10 Georgia. Two weeks earlier, No. 19 Vandy defeated No. 13 Auburn in its final ranked home game. Vanderbilt's last two finishes came in the final polls of the season (2012 and 2013).

Vandy essentially replaced Michigan in the rankings this week. The Wolverines were the only team eliminated after a 4-3 loss at Illinois on Saturday, and they are unranked for the first time since the first regular season poll of the 2021 season.

According to College Poll Archive, the Wolverines' streak of 54 consecutive weeks in the rankings was the fourth-longest active streak in the country behind Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia. The last reigning national champion to finish unranked was 2020 LSU, which finished 5-5 in that pandemic-shortened season. – Russo

Oregon is the clear No. 1, Alabama is a mystery and Indiana is underrated

• I was one of six voters who picked Oregon No. 1 last week after beating Ohio State, which made the Ducks an easy choice on my ballot there after the Texas loss. The rest of my top five fell into place pretty easily, with Georgia moving back up to No. 2 – it now has a 15-point road win over a team that was No. 1 and lost, leading to a toss-up at Alabama – followed from Ohio State, Penn State and Miami, which remained stable in my three spots. I voted for Texas #6. On the one hand, the loss to Georgia is forgivable, but given Michigan and Oklahoma's struggles, it's also becoming easier to poke holes in the Longhorns' resume.

• How far should Alabama fall? That was the toughest question in this week's vote. I lowered the Crimson Tide to 17th; They have two losses against Vanderbilt and Tennessee, but also a win against Georgia, which was reinforced by Saturday's result in Austin. There is no perfect answer, mostly because of you could Given the head-to-head results and identical records, we're making a case for Alabama falling behind Vanderbilt. But the win over Georgia — and Vandy's loss to Georgia State — are enough to create a split.

• Everything from about No. 7 to No. 17 is bunched up, as the gaps between many of the one-loss Power 4 teams and undefeated teams like Indiana, Iowa State, BYU and Pitt are very small. There will still be a lot to change. With that in mind, I think Indiana deserves to be higher than its No. 13 ranking. It's true that the Hoosiers played a weak schedule, but they got some vindication by beating Nebraska 56-7 – their biggest Big Ten win since 1945 – and won by at least two touchdowns every week. They are ranked No. 1 in scoring and No. 7 in points allowed, and although quarterback Kurtis Rourke's injury creates uncertainty, they have secured a top-10 spot at No. 8 in my poll. – Matt Brown, senior college sports editor and AP Top 25 voter

What's next in week 8?

Although Texas doesn't have a top-five headliner like Georgia, there are five matchups of ranked teams taking place next Saturday:

No. 20 Illinois at No. 1 Oregon. The last time the Ducks played a game as the No. 1 team in the country, they lost in overtime at home to No. 14 Stanford on Nov. 17, 2012.

No. 12 Notre Dame vs. No. 24 Navy (at East Rutherford, NJ) The 97th meeting will be only the 11th with both teams ranked. The last was in 2019, when No. 16 Notre Dame defeated the 21st-ranked Midshipmen 52-20.

No. 21 Missouri at No. 15 Alabama. The Tide's streak of consecutive appearances in the AP Poll is now 270, which is second only to Nebraska's 348 from 1981 to 2002. Could another defeat mean the end?

No. 5 Texas at No. 25 Vanderbilt. The first meeting since 1928, eight years before the AP poll began.

No. 8 LSU at No. 14 Texas A&M. Curiosity: Every game between the Tigers and Aggies since 2017 has featured a ranked team. The last time both were ranked in their game was 2016. – Russo

Required reading

(Photo by Dillon Gabriel: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)