Kansas State still lurking just outside top 10 in AP and Coaches' Polls

K-State held on to their #11 ranking in the USA Today/Amway Coaches Poll, and gained a spot in the AP Poll, both released this afternoon.

The big news in today's release is that Florida State was punished for last night's escape against Boston College. The coaches again reversed field, giving Alabama the top spot, while the gap between the two teams narrowed considerably in the AP. Should Alabama come away from the Iron Bowl with a win, it's entirely probable that they will surpass the Seminoles in the AP next week as well.

There was surprisingly little change within the top 20 itself, almost all a result of teams moving up a spot in the wake of Mississippi's loss to Arkansas. In the AP, TCU and Baylor swapped places (but are in a virtual tie, separated by only one point) while Arizona skipped past their in-state rivals and Wisconsin to match their order in the Coaches Poll. UCLA jumped past Michigan State in the AP and both Sparty and K-State in the Coaches, and Missouri slipped past Marshall in both polls.

Mississippi and Notre Dame were the week's big losers, each suffering double-digit drops. For the Rebels, it's not that bad; they're still ranked. For Notre Dame, it's disastrous. The Irish recieved no votes at all in the AP, and garnered one single point in the Coaches Poll. Also suffering big losses were Nebraska, Duke, Southern California, and Utah.

On the other side of the ledger, only three teams made big jumps. Minnesota was rewarded for their win over Nebraska, while Louisville surged into the top 25 as well. The other big gainer was Arkansas, who didn't crack the top 25 but did come from no-vote-land to being the first team out in the AP Poll.

For K-State, although neither of these polls really impacts much, the week's results were a slight disappointment. They did receive help with Mississippi's loss, but are now in a position where they cannot crack the top ten before playing Baylor unless someone gets upset next week. There are no games between top ten teams this coming weekend and regardless of the margin of victory beating Kansas is not going to cause voters to decide K-State needs to jump over someone else who won.

That, of course, assumes that the Wildcats don't suffer an embarrassing defeat themselves.

As is custom, we include the computer composite rankings as compiled by Kenneth Massey. This week, they're based on the 54 rankings which had been collated at the time of this post. Five teams who received top-25 votes this week or last are not in the computer top 40 (same as last week); only three teams within the computer top 40 received no votes this week, down one from a week ago.