The ranks of the one-loss teams grew, as Stanford and Boise State suffered defeats that crippled their national title hopes. The Broncos were sent spinning out of the top 10; the Cardinal fell to No. 8 after a loss to Oregon that saw the Ducks move to No. 4.
Two top 10 matchups remain on the regular-season schedule: LSU hosts Arkansas on Nov. 25 and Oklahoma State hosts Oklahoma on Dec. 3.
TCU, Florida State, Notre Dame and Baylor enter this week's rankings.
Here are this week's Power Rankings:
Overall | Voters 1-6 | Voters 7-12 | Voters 13-18 | Voters 19-25| College Football Power Rankings - Week 11 | |||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | PTS | COMMENT | |
| 1 | -- Last Week: 1 | 625 | Western Kentucky made a nuisance of itself for a half, but LSU snapped into life after the break, finishing with a 42-9 win and improving to 36-0 over teams currently in the Sun Belt. The Tigers visit SEC-winless Ole Miss Saturday. | ||
| 2 | -- Last Week: 2 | 599 | For the second time this season, Oklahoma State scored at least seven touchdowns ... by halftime. Also of note in a 66-6 rout of Texas Tech was Brandon Weeden surpassing Zac Robinson for the school record for most career passing touchdowns (69). | ||
| 3 | 1 Last Week: 4 | 570 | Considering Alabama hadn't lost consecutive SEC games since Nick Saban's first season, it was a safe bet that the Tide would rebound from the loss to LSU with a win over Mississippi State. A break from SEC play beckons; Georgia Southern visits Saturday. | ||
| 4 | 2 Last Week: 6 | 556 | Oregon has been climbing up the various polls and standings since a season-opening loss to LSU. The Ducks received their biggest boost yet after handling Stanford comfortably in Palo Alto. Home games against USC and Oregon State await. | ||
| 5 | 2 Last Week: 7 | 517 | Texas Tech isn't doing Oklahoma any favors in the debate among one-loss teams, but the Sooners can still point to the Dec. 3 Bedlam game as the ultimate test of their national championship credentials. | ||
| 6 | 2 Last Week: 8 | 505 | Jarius Wright's catch or Joe Adam's punt return? The debate over which play was best was more entertaining than anything else that happened on the field, as Arkansas cruised to a 49-7 win over Tennessee. | ||
| 7 | 2 Last Week: 9 | 456 | Chandler Catanzaro redeemed himself after an earlier miss, hitting a 43-yard field goal as time expired to give Clemson a 31-28 win over Wake Forest to clinch the division and a place in the ACC championship game. | ||
| 8 | 5 Last Week: 3 | 448 | Stanford's 17-game winning streak ended Saturday at the hands of the team that last beat the Cardinal. Oregon proved too explosive for Stanford to handle, likely denying the Cardinal an opportunity to win their first league title since 1999. | ||
| 9 | 1 Last Week: 10 | 403 | Much has been made of Trent Richardson's ability to chew up yards after contact, but a clinic in that particular skill was put on by David Wilson in Virginia Tech's 37-26 win at Georgia Tech. Wilson finished with a career-best 175 yards. | ||
| 10 | 1 Last Week: 11 | 385 | Houston is enjoying its best season in school history, and Case Keenum is leaving NCAA records in his wake. The competition picks up considerably for the Cougars' final two games; SMU and Tulsa are a combined 10-2 in Conference USA play. | ||
| 11 | 6 Last Week: 5 | 373 | And so it ends ... again. Boise State relived its nightmare from a year ago, as a missed field goal sent it to a loss against TCU and doomed its BCS dreams. The Broncos have three games to play, but even a MWC title is all but certain to be out of reach. | ||
| 12 | 2 Last Week: 14 | 321 | Georgia beat Auburn 45-7 in a convincing display, and all that stands between the Bulldogs and trip to Atlanta is a win over Kentucky in Athens. The Dawgs' eight-game winning streak is their longest since 2002, when they won the Sugar Bowl. | ||
| 13 | -- Last Week: 13 | 315 | Michigan State avenged its only Big Ten loss in 2010 with a 37-21 win at Iowa. It leaves the Spartans needing to beat Indiana and Northwestern in their remaining games to clinch a place in the Big Ten championship game. | ||
| 14 | 1 Last Week: 15 | 291 | It was the 121st time Minnesota and Wisconsin have met -- the most played rivalry in FBS -- but Montee Ball was more interested in securing his place in Badger and Big Ten history. His 3 TDs gave him the single-season record in league and school history. | ||
| 15 | 1 Last Week: 16 | 271 | South Carolina beat Florida to keep pressure on Georgia. The Gamecocks need the Bulldogs to lose to Kentucky to get back to Atlanta. In the meantime, they turn their sights to their remaining games: home to Citadel and Clemson. | ||
| 16 | 2 Last Week: 18 | 264 | The cult of Collin Klein continues to grow. After coming up just short to Oklahoma State a week ago, the Kansas State QB led the Wildcats past Texas A&M in four overtimes. They visit Texas on Saturday. | ||
| 17 | -- Last Week: 17 | 260 | If not for a postseason ban, USC's visit to Oregon might be the first of a doubleheader, with the two meeting again in the Pac-12 championship game. We'll have to settle for just one, as the Trojans take their two-game winning streak to Eugene. | ||
| 18 | 2 Last Week: 20 | 209 | It will stand as the strangest circumstances a visiting team will have to endure, but Nebraska handled itself in State College, leaving with a 17-14 win over Penn State. It puts the Cornhuskers back into the thick of things in the Big Ten Legends. | ||
| 19 | 3 Last Week: 22 | 173 | It's a good indication of how far Michigan's defense has come that the Wolverines won last year's meeting with Illinois 67-65 (in 3 OTs) and it didn't seem at all surprising. This season, Michigan is seventh in the country in scoring defense (16.1 ppg). | ||
| 20 | 6 Last Week: NR | 159 | TCU and Boise State are more used to meeting in BCS bowl games than as league foes. The Horned Frogs all but ensured the former would not materialize for the Broncos this season, using a 2-point conversion to slip past Boise. | ||
| 21 | 3 Last Week: 24 | 121 | Conference USA's other BCS darling has won eight in a row and faces UAB and Memphis to close out the regular season (4-16 combined). The question is: who will the Golden Eagles face in the C-USA title game? | ||
| 22 | 10 Last Week: 12 | 117 | Another fall Saturday saw college football played in State College but this was no ordinary Saturday. PSU lost to Nebraska, but it paled in comparison to being confronted with the magnitude of a child sex abuse scandal that rocked the community. | ||
| 23 | 3 Last Week: NR | 79 | It seems forever ago that Florida State was touted as a national title contender. How quickly things change in college football. The Seminoles have quietly won five in a row since a three-game losing streak derailed their season. | ||
| 24 | NEW Last Week: NR | 27 | Another team that has slowly gained momentum after a crippling start is Notre Dame, which won its seventh game in eight tries since starting 0-2. The Irish close the season with Boston College and Stanford. | ||
| 25 | 1 Last Week: NR | 23 | Baylor knows what it's like to dwell in the Big 12 cellar. The Bears seemed to be taking a trip down memory lane against Kansas before waking up and escaping with an overtime win. They're bowl-eligible in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1992. | ||
| Others receiving votes: West Virginia (17), Georgia Tech (12), Texas (10), Virginia (9), Tulsa (7), Cincinnati (3) | |||||
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