Who says you need to play a game to make your biggest jump in the AP Top-25 Poll all season, right?
Well, Missouri Football just did exactly that.
During their first bye week of the season, the Tigers made a five-spot jump from 19 to 14 in the nation’s AP Poll.
After starting the season unranked, it wouldn’t be until week three that Missouri would finally crack the AP Poll at No. 25. Following their victory over Louisiana in week three, the Tigers made the jump to 23 before hopping up three spots after their inaugural SEC win over South Carolina. However, after an underwhelming victory over UMass in week five, the Tigers inched up just one more place in the polls.
In one of the most hectic weeks of college football, unranked UCLA was the first winless team to beat a top-10 opponent since 1985. With the Bruins’ victory over Penn State, the Nittany Lions were knocked out of the poll. Meanwhile, down south, unranked Florida knocked off what was the preseason No. 1 team in the nation, Texas, pushing the Longhorns out of the rankings as well. The Bearcats of Cincinnati got in on the action too, knocking off a No. 14 Iowa State team 38-30 on the banks of the Ohio River.
It’s because of those upsets that we saw tons of teams move up the ranks, including the Tigers. Arizona State made the jump from No. 25 to No. 21 despite not playing a game. While every team that was ranked between 24 and 19 all made a five-spot jump to be ranked No. 19 through No. 14, Mizzou was the only one of those to not play a game.
In front of the Tigers, Georgia Tech made a notable jump, moving all the way to No. 13 from No. 17.
In the top twelve, every team moved up as well. Between Tennessee, which moved from No. 15 to No. 12 all the way down to Indiana, which jumped from No. 8 to No. 7.
With all the upward movement, a good number of teams took a hit as well. Fellow SEC squad Vanderbilt fell four spots from No. 16 to No. 20 following its 30-14 loss at the hands of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Iowa State dropped a week-high eight spots from No. 14 to No. 22, while Florida State dropped seven spots from No. 18 to No. 25.
The Tigers will now carry their new ranking into next weekend’s highly anticipated matchup with a now No. 8 Alabama team. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Faurot Field, and the game will be broadcast live on KCOU 88.1.