CFB · RANKINGS · AP-TOP-25 · WEEK-9 · QUADS · POLL-REACTION

The AP Moved Georgia Up to Third on a Bye While Our No. 1 Team Sits Ninth

By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·

The AP Top 25 and the MVPeav Quads Top 25 side by side for week 9 of the 2026 college football season

Georgia didn't play Saturday. It has a home loss to Auburn on its record, an Auburn team SP+ ranks 51st, and it moved up 2 spots to No. 3 anyway.

Kentucky played, won, and sits 7-1 with a win over LSU and a win at South Carolina. Our Quads ranking has the Wildcats No. 1 in the country. The AP has them 9th.

Those two teams are the whole poll this week. The voters got a lot right near the top, and I'll give them that first. Then we get to the spots where the ballot and the résumé stopped talking to each other.

How Our Quads Ranking Actually Works

Quads is a résumé ranking built like basketball's NET quadrants. Every game a team has played gets sorted Q1 through Q4 by how good the opponent is and where the game was played. Q1 wins count the most and bad losses cost the most. It ignores margin, head-to-head and the eye test, all on purpose. SP+ says how good a team is, Quads says what it has done, and the AP tries to do both on one ballot.

Georgia is the clean example. The 20-17 win at Alabama is a Q1 win and gets paid like one. The 24-27 home loss to Auburn, with Auburn 51st in SP+, is a Q3 loss, and Quads charges full price for it.

The no-head-to-head part cuts against us too. Alabama sits above two teams that beat it on our board, and I'll own that before the end of this.

The Voters Nailed the Top of the Board

Miami coach Mario Cristobal smiling after the Notre Dame game (file photo, Aug 31, 2025) · Icon Sportswire/Getty Images · View on Getty Images

Miami at No. 1 is fine by me. The Canes are 7-0, hung 52 on Pitt, and own a Q1 road win at Wake Forest, which is why they jumped from 9th to 4th in Quads this week. The AP handed them 59 first-place votes and I can't argue with a single one.

Indiana is where the voters earned their keep. The Hoosiers walked into Michigan Stadium, won 13-6 in overtime, and left with their first win in that building since 1967. Michigan was starting Tommy Carr for the first time, so it's a little less than it felt like live, but the only loss on Indiana's season is 15-19 to Ohio State, the No. 1 team in SP+. AP 4, Quads 2. Close enough.

Utah went up 4 to No. 6 and the Utes did it the hard way. They trailed Houston 10-0 early in the third quarter and won 21-13 behind Devon Dampier running for 150 yards and 2 scores. The win streak is 13 games now. Quads has Utah 8th, so the voters are a couple spots warmer than the résumé, which is about right for an unbeaten team.

Texas is the one I expected the voters to fumble, and they didn't. Up 8 spots to No. 11 after holding off Ole Miss 34-27, a game the Longhorns led 24-3 at half and nearly gave back. Texas owns Q1 wins over Ohio State and at Tennessee. Quads has them 10th, so the AP is 1 spot off.

BYU dropped 6 spots to No. 8 after a 39-31 double-overtime loss at UCF, and that game turned on disputed calls, a blocked field goal, a replay reversal and a roughing-the-kicker flag. I'm not relitigating any of it. BYU was 1st in Quads last week and is 7th now, and the AP landed 1 spot away. The top of the board mostly agrees with itself.

Georgia at No. 3 Is Ranking the Jersey

Where the AP and Quads split the most
Where the AP and Quads split the most · MVPeav graphic

This is the biggest gap on the board. AP 3, Quads 17, 14 spots apart.

Georgia sat at home this weekend and went up 2 spots. BYU lost, and the chaos did the climbing for the Bulldogs while they sat on the couch. Notre Dame also had a bye, and it went down a spot. The voters looked at two idle teams and swapped them.

Georgia got the benefit of the doubt there, and I don't think the teams around it on the ballot get the same treatment. A home loss to Auburn should cost something. For the Bulldogs it cost nothing, and then the weekend paid them for staying home.

The résumé isn't bad. The win at Alabama is Q1 and Quads pays it. The 41-13 win over Oklahoma is a Q2 win. Then comes the 24-27 home loss to a team SP+ has 51st, a Q3 loss, and that one is a hole you can drive a bus through. Georgia's wins-above-bubble number is 0.36.

SP+ has Georgia 2nd, and I'm not going to pretend they're the 17th best team in America. They look like a top-3 team. The voters are ranking how good Georgia looks, and the name on the jersey makes that an easy call to sign off on. Quads only grades what the Bulldogs have done, and so far that's one great win and one loss they're going to hear about all year.

Notre Dame and Oklahoma State Are Living on Reputation

Notre Dame lost 24-28 at BYU in week 7, took a bye, and dropped 1 spot to No. 5. The Irish are 0-1 in Q1 games and their best win is 41-13 over Wisconsin, a team SP+ has 40th. Quads has them 12th. Fifth in the country with zero Q1 wins is a reputation rank, plain and simple.

Oklahoma State is the funnier one. The Cowboys are a new entry at No. 24 after beating Colorado 57-24. Colorado is 93rd in SP+, which makes that a Q4 game, the bottom shelf. Oklahoma State also lost 10-24 at Tulsa (SP+ 83) in week 1 and 32-35 at Houston. The win over Oregon, SP+ 12, is a real one, but the wins-above-bubble number is -0.63 and Quads has them 36th. Nobody should be able to blow out Colorado and buy a poll spot the same afternoon.

Kentucky is the other side of that coin. The Wildcats moved up 3 to No. 9, and they own the best wins-above-bubble number on the board at 1.44. SP+ ranks them 32nd, and that number is why the voters keep them at arm's length. Kentucky beat Vanderbilt 34-17 this weekend and gained 3 spots. Georgia beat nobody and gained 2. The poll keeps weighing how a team looks against what it has done, and it keeps picking looks.

Where Quads Goes Its Own Way and Where It Gets Caught

Teams we see differently
Teams we see differently · MVPeav graphic

We have Kentucky first and we're going to keep having Kentucky first. We also match the AP exactly on Tennessee at 16 after the Vols lost 24-27 at South Carolina on a last-second field goal and fell 5 spots. Same number on both boards.

UTSA is where we're out on a limb. The Roadrunners are 7-1 and 18th in Quads with exactly 1 AP vote. The only loss is 6-30 at Texas, SP+ 8, and the best wins are Q3 games like 42-19 at Tulane, a team SP+ has 101st. SP+ ranks UTSA 59th. Quads sees a team that keeps winning the games in front of it. The voters see a schedule, and I understand both reads.

USC fell out of the AP after a 7-24 loss at Wisconsin, and we still have the Trojans 20th. Wisconsin came in at No. 25 and sits 24th in Quads, so the voters and the résumé are 1 spot apart on the Badgers. Iowa fell out after losing 10-13 at Minnesota, a team SP+ has 57th, and we keep the Hawkeyes 25th. Iowa does own a 20-19 win at Michigan, and it leads everyone outside the poll with 76 vote points.

Now the part where Quads gets caught. It has no head-to-head rule, and this week that shows up all over the board.

The AP isn't clean on this either. Missouri stayed at No. 23 on a bye while Florida, the team Missouri beat by 28, rose 3 spots to No. 17. Every ranking has a blind spot somewhere, and I'd rather you hear about ours from me.

Next Sunday Kentucky Has to Climb

One fix would make this ballot look a lot more like the season that's actually been played.

Kentucky is 7-1. The only loss is 17-45 to Alabama, a team SP+ has 7th. The wins include 35-34 over LSU, SP+ 4, and 35-34 at South Carolina, SP+ 28. Two one-point wins over good teams, and I know the voters hold that against them. Quads counts them as wins, because they were.

Georgia lost at home to Auburn. Notre Dame lost at BYU. Both sit above a team that has only lost to Alabama and has beaten more good teams than either of them. Kentucky belongs in the top five.