AP Photo/Sam Craft
The biggest upset of the 2021 college football season and a clash of Top Five Big Ten teams has led to a shakeup in the Amway Coaches Poll.
Georgia ascends to the No. 1 ranking after Alabama’s upset loss to Texas A&M, while Iowa moves into the second slot after taking down Penn State. Oklahoma, Cincinnati and Alabama round out the top five.
Here is a look at how the rest of the Top 25 played out.
1. Georgia
2. Iowa
3. Oklahoma
4. Cincinnati
5. Alabama
6. Ohio State
7. Michigan
8. Penn State
9. Michigan State
10. Oregon
11. Kentucky
12. Oklahoma State
13. Notre Dame
14. Ole Miss
15. Coastal Carolina
16. Wake Forest
17. Florida
18. Texas A&M
19. Arkansas
20. BYU
21. NC State
22. Arizona State
23. SMU
24. San Diego State
25. Clemson
Seth Small hit a game-winning field goal as time expired to give Texas A&M a 41-38 victory over Alabama, the Crimson Tide’s first loss to an unranked team since 2007. Zach Calzada threw for 285 yards and three touchdowns, and the Aggies defense forced two critical Alabama turnovers to avoid starting their SEC season 0-3.
Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher also became the first former Nick Saban assistant to defeat the Alabama coach.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” Fisher told reporters of beating Saban. “I don’t mean that in any disrespect. Nick is one heck of a football coach. I have known Nick for years. I consider him a great friend. Coached with him, have a lot of respect for him. He has got great teams.
“The thing that means something to me is our football team is learning to play against other good football teams and have success. That’s the important thing to me. It was inevitable. Somebody was going to do it in time. Hey, it happened to be us. That’s great. But that doesn’t mean anything to me because that’s not a goal that I’m trying to talk about or do. I want our organization, our program to do well. That’s the only thing I care about.”
Iowa likely owes its continued undefeated season to an unfortunate injury to Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford. The Nittany Lions signal-caller went down late in the first half with Penn State dominating, ahead 17-3 and controlling the pace of the game on both sides of the ball.
Backup Ta’Quan Roberson entered the game for Clifford and the offense ground to a halt, with Roberson throwing for only 34 yards on 7-of-21 passing and tossing two picks. The Hawkeyes scored 10 fourth-quarter points to escape with a 23-20 victory as Penn State found itself searching for answers as to why Roberson seemed so unprepared for the moment.
“Next man up mentality, and we weren’t ready for that on the road,” Franklin told reporters. “We did not do a good job of that. That starts with me. I did not have the guys ready for that.”
Clifford’s long-term prognosis is unknown at this time, but the Lions will have to run the table in order to have any shot of making their first College Football Playoff.
Meanwhile, BYU’s hopes of being a playoff crasher are over after a 26-17 loss to Boise State. The Cougars turned the ball over four times against a Boise State team that entered the weekend at 2-3.
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