Kansas State slides to #22 in AP Poll

In the wake of last night’s agonizing collapse against TCU, Kansas State remains in the AP poll at #22, receiving votes from every voter except for the pride of Champaign, Bob Asmussen.

Indeed, 18 of the 63 voters still have the Wildcats in the top 20; Mike Beradino of the South Bend Tribune still has the Cats at #15, after placing them 14th last week, while Brett McMurphy only dropped K-State from 13 to 16 and Zack Klein of WSB-TV in Atlanta also has the Cats at 16 after being at #12 last week. The voter who most over-rated K-State last week, Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, dropped the Cats from #10 all the way to #19.

On a week where eight ranked teams were idle and and only four suffered losses, there wasn’t a great deal of change in the rankings. The top 6 remain untouched, with #2 Ohio State, #3 Tennessee, and #6 Alabama getting small point increases at the expense of #4 Michigan, #5 Clemson, and #7 Ole Miss — who fell eight spots to #15 after losing to LSU, the biggest drop of the week. Georgia’s vote total remained steady at 1530 atop the poll.

A couple of first-place votes shifted. Tennessee lost two first-place nods, one shifting to Ohio State and one to Clemson.

All the movement between 7-15 was the result of Ole Miss losing, #14 Syracuse losing to #5 Clemson, and #10 Oregon beating #9 UCLA; the Bruins fell to 12th and the Orange to #16, and for with one exception the other teams in that band simply moved up to fill the vacancies. TCU moved up to #7, followed by Oregon and Oklahoma State; USC and Wake Forest are tied at 10th. The mentioned exception was Penn State, whose win over (rv-35) Minnesota was enough to push them up three spots to #13, hopping over Utah.

In the bottom third of the poll, K-State’s loss allowed Illinois to slide up a spot, and LSU leapt into the poll to occupy the 18th position after beating Ole Miss, thus closing off the Wildcat vacuum. Kentucky remained at 19, while Cincinnati and North Carolina moved up one spot each at the expense of Texas, whose loss to Oklahoma State dropped them out of the poll. Tulane pulled in right behind the Wildcats at #23, leapfrogging idle North Carolina State. The former #24, Mississippi State, fell off after being routed by Alabama; their place in the top 25 was taken over by #25 South Carolina after their win over Texas A&M.

Texas and Mississippi State are still both receiving votes, however; the Longhorns are sitting at #26, but they’re 73 votes behind the Gamecocks with only 38 points. Clanga slid to #29 with only 10 points. Oregon State quadrupled their point total, moving up to #28 with 25 points, and a win over Northwestern was apparently enough for Maryland to move from 5 points to 8 and 30th position.

You’ll note we skipped #27 there; somehow, a win over BYU was enough to get 17 voters to put 7-1 Liberty on their ballot for a total of 35 points.

Troy (6-2) is at 31 with three points after an ugly 10-6 win over previously 34th South Alabama, followed by four teams who each received a single 25th-place vote: Arkansas, Washington, Florida State, and Texas-San Antonio (whose lone vote was cast by our pal Kellis Robinett). That’s UTSA’s first nod of the season, while Washington returned to a ballot after a two-week absence. Arkansas and Florida State had both received a single point last week as well.

Disappearing: (26) Purdue, who lost to Wisconsin; (29) UCF, obliterated by East Carolina; (30) Kansas, which fell to Baylor; (31) James Madison, which suffered its second straight loss, this time to Marshall; and (34) South Alabama and (35) Minnesota, both already mentioned.

In next week’s ranked vs. ranked matchups, in addition to (10) Oklahoma State at (17) K-State we’ve got (2) Ohio State at (13) Penn State and (19) Kentucky at (3) Tennessee.