Grabbing a quite comfortable SEC win, Alabama are now a unanimous number one team, for the first time this season, while LSU’s unimpressive win over Towson dropped them another spot. Florida State are number 3 for the first time in almost a decade while Northwestern make the rankings for the first time since 2008.

No huge upsets during the weekend, but more losses to ranked teams while Oregon disrupt the SEC harmony at 1-2 by claiming the runner-up spot from LSU, after the Ducks dismantled Arizona while the Tigers struggled to come away from Auburn with a win. Alabama? Business as usual, beating Florida Atlantic and putting 40 points on the board.

Back to the SEC, Alabama-LSU 1-2 thing. This was the case last season on 8 of the rankings, although LSU were the number one team until they lost in the national championship game. The big moves this time were Notre Dame, moving up 11 spots after beating Michigan State; and Stanford, stunning USC 21-14, making a 12 place climb.

While the national title contenders had no problems what so ever in week 2; Alabama cruising against Western Kentucky, USC putting up big numbers against Syracuse and LSU demolishing Washington, the big move was #8 Arkansas losing at home to Louisiana Monroe, dropping out of the rankings for the second biggest fall in the history of the AP Poll, behind Michigan’s fall from #5 in 2007.

The national champions opened where they deserve to be, at #1. The Alabama Crimson Tide beat Michigan 41-14 in the featured opening game of week 1, giving them most first place votes after the USC Trojans were the preseason number one team in the nation. Their 49-10 win over Hawai’i wasn’t good enough to keep them from falling to number 2 in the rankings.