Posted by John Raoux/Associated Press
When Texas A&M passed Florida in the Amway Coaches Poll last week, there did not seem to be any particular reasoning behind the flip-flop at Nos. 5 and 6.
Seven days later, the coaches appear to be prescient.
Alabama sits atop of an unchanged Top Five, with Notre Dame, Clemson, Ohio State and Texas A&M rounding things out. However, the changes begin at No. 6, with Cincinnati moving up following Florida’s upset loss to LSU.
Here is a look at how the rankings played out.
1. Alabama
2. Notre Dame
3. Clemson
4. Ohio State
5. Texas A&M
6. Cincinnati
7. Indiana
8. Iowa State
9. Georgia
10. Oklahoma
11. Florida
12. Coastal Carolina
13. USC
14. Northwestern
15. North Carolina
16. BYU
17. Iowa
18. UL Lafayette
19. Miami
20. Tulsa
21. Liberty
22. Oklahoma State
23. NC State
24. Texas
25. San Jose State
LSU, days after announcing a self-imposed 2020 bowl ban, played the spoiler for Florida’s national title hopes in Gainesville when Cade York nailed a 57-yard field goal through the fog to give the Tigers a 37-34 win. Evan McPherson missed a 51-yard response as time expired.
Kyle Trask likely saw his Heisman hopes dashed in a 474-yard, two-touchdown passing performance by throwing two picks and losing a fumble.
“Obviously, you just look at all the things we did — you can’t win doing what we did tonight,” Florida coach Dan Mullen told reporters. “No matter what is going on. No matter who you’re playing. We lose the turnover battle. We turn it over three times, minus-three turnover ratio. We don’t score touchdowns in the red zone. We can’t make key stops when we need to defensively. And we lose the special teams part of the game.
With four games featuring Top 10 teams canceled or postponed due to COVID-19, Miami’s embarrassing 62-26 loss to North Carolina was the only other notable result of the week. Michael Carter and Javonte Williams combined for 544 rushing yards and five touchdowns in a start-to-finish shellacking that ranked among the worst performances in Miami history.
“It was a humiliating performance. We have to give credit to North Carolina. They were phenomenal. That was probably as good as they could play matched up with as badly as we can play and that is the result,” Miami coach Manny Diaz told reporters.
North Carolina moved up five spots to No. 15 with the victory. Miami dropped all the way to No. 19.
No. 22 Oklahoma State and No. 25 San Jose State moved into the Top 25.