AP Poll 12/2

Associated Press Poll

Year: 1996

12/2/1996

Week 15

Rank	Team (FPV)	Points	Prev
1	Florida State (61)	1,669	2
2	Arizona State (5)	1,609	3
3	Nebraska (1)	1,526	4
4	Florida	1,484	1
5	Ohio State	1,383	6
6	BYU	1,274	7
7	Colorado	1,250	5
8	Penn State	1,233	8
9	Tennessee	1,043	9
10	Northwestern	990	11
11	Alabama	977	15
12	Washington	916	12
13	North Carolina	910	13
14	Kansas State	857	14
15	Virginia Tech	829	17
16	Michigan	657	18
17	LSU	640	19
18	Notre Dame	535	10
19	Miami	454	23
20	Wyoming	450	21
21	Iowa	306	22
22	Syracuse	280	16
23	Army	144	24
24	West Virginia	96	25
25	Virginia	75	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.