AP Poll 9/7

Associated Press Poll

Year: 1981

9/7/1981

Week 1

Rank	Team (FPV)	Points	Prev
1	Michigan (37)	1,184	1
2	Alabama (11)	1,110	4
3	Oklahoma	1,049	2
4	Notre Dame (4)	1,024	3
5	USC (3)	1,009	5
6	Georgia (4)	929	10
7	Nebraska	779	6
8	Texas	747	9
9	Penn State	742	7
10	Pittsburgh	724	8
11	Ohio State	538	11
12	UCLA	466	13
13	North Carolina	440	12
14	Mississippi State	438	14
15	BYU	373	16
16	Miami	356	NR
17	Washington	222	15
18	Florida State	186	19
19	Stanford	180	18
20	Arizona State	173	20

Associated Press Poll
Started in 1936.

More Info

The Associated Press began running polls of sports writers to determine who is, by popular opinion, the best college football team in the country. The first AP Poll was run in 1934 but was not run continuously until 1936.

The AP Poll currently lists the top 25 teams in the nation. From 1936 to 1961 the poll only ranked the top 20 teams. From 1962 to 1967 it only ranked the top 10 teams. From 1968 to 1988 the AP Poll returned to ranking the top 20 teams. In 1989 they started ranking the top 25 teams.

The AP poll was used in the beginning of the BCS to calculate the team standings. Due to some controversies within the BCS, the AP Poll was pulled from these calculations which caused the BCS to create the new Harris Poll.