AP Poll 10/20

Associated Press Poll

Year: 1997

10/20/1997

Week 9

Rank	Team (FPV)	Points	Prev
1	Nebraska (33)	1,698	2
2	Penn State (26)	1,668	1
3	Florida State (9)	1,629	3
4	North Carolina (2)	1,524	4
5	Michigan	1,494	5
6	Florida	1,401	7
7	Washington	1,264	10
8	Tennessee	1,253	9
9	Ohio State	1,222	11
10	Washington State	1,155	13
11	Auburn	1,048	6
12	Oklahoma State	883	16
13	UCLA	868	17
14	Kansas State	806	20
15	Michigan State	666	12
16	Georgia	664	19
17	LSU	642	8
18	Iowa	561	15
19	Virginia Tech	415	22
20	Texas A&M	376	14
21	West Virginia	366	23
22	Purdue	304	NR
23	Arizona State	290	NR
24	Toledo	134	NR
25	Mississippi	114	NR

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.