College football rankings reactions heading into Week 3

The AP and Coaches polls released their first set of college football rankings since the season began. Both polls published their initial results to include all FBS teams for consideration including the Big Ten and Pac-12, which are not scheduled to return to the field as of now. In its rankings heading into the third weekend of college football, the polls included only those who are competing this fall.

Who went up?

Ten new teams entered the AP and Coaches polls in their latest updates. Among teams already ranked previously, the Tennessee Volunteers made the largest jump in the AP Poll moving 10 spots from No. 25 to No. 15 despite being scheduled to play for another two weeks. In the Coaches Poll, three teams moved up eight slots including the North Carolina Tar Heels, UCF Golden Knights and Cincinnati Bearcats. Of those three, only North Carolina played with a 31-6 home win over Syracuse.

Who went down?

Only one team ranked in the preseason polls lost so far, and that is the Iowa State Cyclones. After being ranked No. 23 by the AP and No. 25 by the coaches, Iowa State lost 31-14 to the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns despite coming in as double-digit favorites. The Cyclones were not ranked in either poll on Sunday.

Big 12 disappoints

In addition to Iowa State, it was a bad Saturday for the Big 12. Seven teams from the conference opened their season, and it was certainly not a solid showing for the conference as a whole. As the Cyclones were losing to Louisiana, you could’ve switched channels to watch the Kansas State Wildcats lose to the Arkansas State Red Wolves 35-31. Kansas State was also favored by double digits.

If you decided to stay up late, you could’ve seen the Kansas Jayhawks fall behind 28-0 in the first half to the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers in an eventual loss. The Texas Tech Red Raiders survived 35-33 despite allowing 600 yards to the Houston Baptist offense.

The West Virginia Mountaineers and Oklahoma Sooners took care of their FCS opponents, and the Texas Longhorns blew out the Utep Miners, which could be the worst FBS team in 2020.

What’s up next?

The college football season is slowly but surely rolling out more and more games each weekend. Twenty-four games are in store for Week 3 with 11 games involving a team ranked in the top 25.

We are scheduled to see the first college football game among ranked teams this season when the No. 17 Miami Hurricanes travel to play the 18th-ranked Louisville Cardinals. Ranked teams seeing their first action of 2020 include No. 11 Oklahoma State, No. 13 Cincinnati and No. 14 UCF.

The first game of the weekend will be played Friday night at 7 p.m. ET between Coastal Carolina and Campbell.

AP Poll

Coaches Poll