AP POLL: Michigan stays put at No. 8 amid shakeup in top 10

By
Alex Muller
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They needed another second-half surge to put Purdue away on Saturday in West Lafayette but the Michigan Wolverines extended their record to 4-0 on the season, 1-0 in conference play.

Despite the less-than-ideal performance from Jim Harbaugh & Co. on Saturday, the Wolverines stand pat in the latest top 25 poll from the Associated Press.

A big reason Michigan is not moving anywhere in the polls is because of what happened to teams around them this week. The two biggest jumps from last week to this week were Georgia (+4 spots to No. 7), who dominated No. 17 Mississippi State 31-3 at home on Saturday, and TCU (+6 spots to No. 9), who was very impressive on the road against Oklahoma State, who dropped ten spots to No. 16.

As far as the rest of the top 10 is concerned, Washington slid up one spot to No. 6 to fill the void left by the Cowboys of OSU. The top 5 remains unchanged despite some scares on Saturday. No upset alert for No. 1 Alabama, as they absolutely dump-trucked an upstart Vanderbilt team 59-0 on the road.

Amazingly, the -10 drop off from Oklahoma State was not the biggest decline this week. After falling to unranked North Carolina State at home on Saturday, Florida State goes from No. 12 to falling out of the top 25 entirely. The Seminoles, who were preseason No. 3 in the nation and are without sophomore quarterback Deondre Francois for the season due to injury, have not started 0-2 since the 1989 season (excluding the 2007 season when they vacated wins). FSU, however, did rattle off ten straight wins after that start in ’89.

Elsewhere in the top 25, Notre Dame is back in the polls at No. 22 after a convincing 38-18 win on the road at Michigan State on Saturday. The Fighting Irish dropped out after their Week 2 loss at home to the aforementioned Georgia Bulldogs.