Five of the top 11 teams in last week’s poll lost as the Horns regained pole position.
For the first time since 1984, the Texas Longhorns will head to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas next weekend as the No. 1-ranked team in the country after regaining the top position in the AP Top 25 poll on Sunday.
It’s the third week this season that the Longhorns are first in the poll.
With a weekend off due to a bye, Texas received 52 of the first-place votes after five of the top 11 teams in last week’s poll lost on Saturday, including former No. 1 Alabama, which fell to Vanderbilt 40-35 in Nashville a week after moving past the Horns with the help of a 41-34 win over the Bulldogs in Tuscaloosa. Ohio State received the other nine first-place votes.
In a drop that illustrated the capriciousness of voters, Alabama fell to No. 7, two spots behind the Georgia team that it beat just last week after head coach Kirby Smart’s team beat Auburn 31-13.
Elsewhere in the SEC, Tennessee dropped from No. 4 to No. 8 after losing 19-14 to Arkansas, Ole Miss jumped three spots from No. 12 to No. 9 after bouncing back from its loss to Kentucky with a 27-3 win over South Carolina, LSU remained steady at No. 13, and Texas A&M moved from No. 25 to No. 15 thanks to a resounding 41-10 win over Missouri, which dropped from No. 9 to No. 21. Oklahoma moved up one spot to No. 18 while also sitting idle on its bye week.