si
Three of the top five teams in the nation were idle this week, but No. 1 Miami and No. 2 BYU took the field. The Hurricanes showcased the country's most potent offense in a dominant performance, while the Cougars were upset by UCF in overtime.
Within the AP top 25, several ranked teams stumbled: Ole Miss lost to a resurgent Texas squad, Texas Tech suffered a disappointing defeat to Cincinnati, and Tennessee fell to South Carolina—all teams ranked inside the top 11. Despite the chaos, Miami will retain the No. 1 ranking, while others continue to climb.
Those rankings remain irrelevant to head coach Mario Cristobal and his players, who are still motivated by the bitter taste of last year's rankings and College Football Playoff run. The Big Ten also saw Iowa and USC lose to unranked opponents, while SEC teams like Texas and LSU are beginning to surge.
Even in a blowout victory, the Hurricanes are not satisfied with their performance against conference foes. "A really good conference win, solid play," Cristobal said after the game. "Our guys played real fast on offense, albeit a couple of penalties that slowed us down for a bit but I believe we scored on four or five drives if I'm not mistaken and the field goal as well. The one time we stopped ourselves, dropped the ball on fourth down, kind of got hurt by a penalty there.
"Defensively, I believe four straight three and outs to start this thing off, played really well to start off, allowed some explosive plays, so some things we certainly have to fix there; in coverage, putting a little more pressure on the quarterback. All in all, again some positives, some things we got to clean up; some pre-snap penalties, at least six, I believe, four to six of them, and ten overall."
This story will be updated with the new rankings when they are released.