AP Poll 10/19

Associated Press Poll

Year: 1981

10/19/1981

Week 7

Rank	Team (FPV)	Points	Prev
1	Penn State (37)	1,284	2
2	Pittsburgh (27)	1,278	3
3	North Carolina (3)	1,155	4
4	Clemson	1,033	6
5	USC	994	7
6	Iowa	928	12
7	Georgia	902	9
8	SMU	848	10
9	Mississippi State	641	16
10	Texas	618	1
11	Alabama	559	15
12	Arkansas	479	NR
13	BYU	413	17
14	Iowa State	410	NR
15	Nebraska	346	19
16	Washington State	335	18
17	Arizona State	326	20
18	Michigan	298	5
19	Missouri	267	8
20	Florida State	147	11

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.