Three weeks after falling to No. 6, the Ohio State Buckeyes jumped back over the LSU Tigers for the No. 5 spot in the Amway Coaches Poll powered by USA TODAY Sports. After two weeks of Ohio State slowly losing ground to LSU, a few votes at a time, the impressive win over Nebraska was enough to catapult the Buckeyes back to the top spot.
The major news in the poll, though, will be the change at the top spot. After Clemson’s near-miss against North Carolina this week, the Tigers lost over 30 of their first-place votes. Alabama picked up almost all of them and moved to No. 1 for the first time this season. Ohio State, which had not received a single first-vote this season, picked up four of them. Ohio State’s average vote is still around fifth place, though it’s a much-improved number over previous weeks.
Other than the Alabama-Clemson and Ohio State-LSU flips, the Top 15 remains unchanged. The poll saw very little movement overall this week. Cal, USC, and Kansas State fell out with losses. Michigan State moved back in to the poll for the first time since losing to Arizona State (Arizona State, on the other hand, is still unranked), and is joined by Memphis and Oklahoma State at the back of the poll.
The Big Ten and SEC each lead the poll with six teams. The Pac 12, which had been towards the top of the poll most of the season, is down to just three ranked teams. The ACC and Big 12 each have three ranked teams as well. The AAC now has two ranked teams with UCF and Memphis, while the Mountain West has one. And, of course, independent Notre Dame makes 25.
