Where the AP Top 25 and Saturday Index split after Week 1

The first AP Top 25 of the regular season and the updated Saturday Index power ratings agree on 21 teams. The overlap ends there.

Ohio State remains No. 1 in the AP poll. Notre Dame holds the top spot in the Saturday Index ratings. Texas Tech is No. 3 here and No. 13 in the poll. Defending national champion Indiana is fifth in the AP and 14th in the power ratings. Michigan fell out of the poll after escaping Western Michigan, but remains No. 22 here.

The two lists are built to answer different questions. The AP Top 25 is a vote by 69 media members. The Saturday Index ranks teams by their current estimated strength on a neutral field. One measures national opinion through a weekly ballot; the other asks how good each team appears to be right now.

Notre Dame or Ohio State at No. 1?

Ohio State received 46 of the AP poll’s 69 first-place votes and remains the clear choice at No. 1. Notre Dame is third in the poll, behind Georgia, but first in the Saturday Index ratings.

The power ratings place Notre Dame at 33.9 and Ohio State at 29.4. That is not a prediction about which team will have the better season or earn the better playoff seed. It is the current estimate of what each would bring to a neutral field.

There is less disagreement about the top tier than the order suggests. Ohio State, Notre Dame and Georgia all appear in both top fives. The first major argument arrives with the team sitting third in the Saturday Index rankings.

Texas Tech remains the largest disagreement inside both Top 25s

Texas Tech is No. 3 in the Saturday Index ratings and No. 13 in the AP poll, a 10-place gap.

The Red Raiders did not jump into that position because of a single Week 1 result. They began the season third in the ratings and remain there. The AP also has Texas Tech in the upper half of its poll, but the gap shows how far the Saturday Index view remains ahead of the broader consensus.

Texas Tech is the team to watch if you want to know which ranking has the better read. The power rating already sees a top-three team. The poll is not there yet.

The AP is more bullish on Indiana and BYU

Indiana is No. 5 in the AP poll and No. 14 in the Saturday Index ratings. The defending champion received eight first-place votes, second only to Ohio State, and its title gives voters a straightforward reason to keep it near the top until the field supplies a stronger counterargument.

The Saturday Index rating is nine spots lower. Last season’s title is part of Indiana’s record, but this ranking is limited to the current estimate of team strength.

BYU creates an equally large split lower down. The Cougars are No. 15 in the AP poll and No. 25 here. Both systems see a Top 25 team. They disagree sharply on how much room belongs between BYU and the cut line.

LSU moved in the same direction at different speeds

LSU’s 51–10 win over Clemson produced the strongest shared reaction near the top of the rankings. The Tigers climbed from No. 11 to No. 8 in the AP poll and from No. 18 to No. 13 in the Saturday Index ratings.

The five-place difference matters less than the agreement underneath it: LSU looked substantially better than its preseason position. The AP rewarded the result more aggressively. The power rating also made LSU one of its largest Top 25 risers without treating one game as a complete rewrite.

Clemson moved the other way. The Tigers fell out of the Saturday Index Top 25 to No. 26 and are also absent from the AP Top 25.

Michigan is the cleanest philosophical split from Week 1

Michigan’s 13–12 win over Western Michigan ended only after officials restored one second and the Wolverines completed a Hail Mary. The AP response was immediate: Michigan dropped from No. 16 to unranked.

The Saturday Index also penalized the performance, moving Michigan from No. 17 to No. 22. The distinction is the cut line. A ballot can remove a team after a result that changes how voters see it. A full-field strength rating can downgrade the same team without pushing it below every program outside the Top 25.

Michigan is not being excused here. It fell five spots. The difference is that the rating still places the Wolverines narrowly inside the Top 25.

The cut line contains eight different teams

South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Michigan and Florida appear in the Saturday Index Top 25 but not the AP poll. Penn State, Houston, Louisville and Virginia appear in the AP Top 25 but sit outside the Saturday Index cut line.

Houston is the largest numerical disagreement among AP-ranked teams: No. 22 in the poll and No. 37 in the power ratings. Penn State is No. 16 in the AP and No. 29 here. Louisville is No. 24 in the AP and No. 36 here. Virginia enters the poll at No. 25 and sits No. 32 in the ratings.

The reverse case begins with South Carolina. The Gamecocks are No. 12 in the Saturday Index ratings despite remaining unranked by the AP. Vanderbilt is No. 19 here, followed by Michigan at No. 22 and Florida at No. 23.

AP Top 25 compared with Saturday Index

“SI position” shows how many places higher or lower a team sits in the Saturday Index ratings than in the AP poll.

The AP poll and Saturday Index ratings answer different questions, so the gaps should remain visible. As the sample grows, some will close and others will become harder to ignore.

View the full Saturday Index power rankings →