Florida drops to No. 9 in AP poll

GAINESVILLE - Frankly, it could have been a lot worse.

The carnage in college football on Saturday - three of the top five and seven of the top 13 teams lost -may have helped Florida out. Its home loss to unranked Auburn cost the Gators their top 5 ranking, but Florida didn't drop out of the top 10.

The Gators fell from No. 4 to No. 9 in the latest Associated Press rankings released Sunday afternoon. Florida fell to No. 7 in the USA Today Coaches poll.

Nine ranked teams went down over the weekend, seven to unranked opponents.

LSU was the big winner over the weekend. After USC struggled against Washington, the Tigers overtook the Trojans, rising to No. 1 this week, while USC fell to No. 2. This is the first No. 1 ranking for LSU since Nov. 2, 1959.

That means Florida will travel to Baton Rouge to play the nation's top team this Saturday. A win could move the Gators back into the top 5, but that clearly won't be easy given the way they've played the last two weeks.

California moved up three spots to No. 3, Ohio State jumped for places to No. 4 and Wisconsin moved up five spots to No. 5. No. 6 South Florida was followed by Boston College, Kentucky, Florida and Oklahoma at No. 10.

The voting was the closest since the second poll of the 2002 season, when Miami and Oklahoma tied for No. 1 and each received 27 first-place votes. LSu received 33 first-place votes, USC picked up 32.

Comments

[Senor T]

I just don't understand why Tebow can't play defense too.

[Tampabaysportsfanatic]

Only 9 is pretty good. Our offense was terrible except for Tebow and Harvin. Our defense could not stop one of the worse passing attacks in the nation. Need to get it together or LSU will destroy us.

[Urban]

UF should be about 15 they got beat by an unranked team at home. Teblow isn't what everybody thought, hit him in the knees and see how many times he carries it.

[TT]

This is an incredibly generous ranking. A loss at home to an unranked opponent that came in as a 19 point underdog?