Notre Dame moves into the top three and a slew of teams from the SEC and Big 12 drop out of contention in this week’s USA TODAY Sports NCAA Re-Rank 1-134.
The Fighting Irish are up three spots to No. 3 after beating Army 49-14. In moving up, the Irish displaced No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Penn State and No. 9 Indiana.
Texas was uninspiring in a 31-14 win against Kentucky. The Longhorns are still looking for their first win against a ranked opponent. Getting past an underrated Minnesota team on the road gives Penn State six wins against bowl teams with the chance to add a seventh should Wisconsin win this weekend against the Golden Gophers.
Notre Dame has better wins than both teams, including Texas A&M, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Navy and the Black Knights. The Irish have averaged 43.6 points per game during an active nine-game winning streak.
Over in the SEC, Alabama is down five spots to No. 12 after losing to Oklahoma, Mississippi is down seven to No. 15 after falling to Florida and Texas A&M falls seven spots to No. 20 after losing to Auburn in four overtimes.
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And in the Big 12, No. 21 Brigham Young is down six after a valiant comeback at Arizona State fell just short and No. 25 Colorado drops six after being bullied by resurgent Kansas.
The Sun Devils take over the league’s top-ranked team at No. 17, followed one spot later by No. 18 Iowa State. The top-ranked team in the Group of Five remains No. 14 Boise State after the Broncos were able to just sneak past Wyoming 17-13.