{"id":64425,"date":"2024-09-16T17:33:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T21:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=64425"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:10:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:10:33","slug":"texas-longhorns-the-new-top-ranked-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/09\/16\/texas-longhorns-the-new-top-ranked-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Longhorns: The New Top Ranked Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Texas Longhorns became the top-ranked team in the AP college football power rankings this week after destroying UTSA on Saturday 56-7. The oblique injury to Heisman front-runner Quinn Ewers didn\u2019t concern the voters as it doesn\u2019t seem too serious. It helps when you have arguably the best backup quarterback in the country in top recruit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/arch-manning-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Arch Manning<\/a>. He threw for 233 yards and four touchdowns after replacing Ewers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Georgia Bulldogs dropped to two in the power rankings since <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/09\/15\/georgia-wins-13-12-barely-passes-its-first-sec-road-test\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">they barely beat unranked Kentucky 13-12.<\/a> It was not a good look for the Bulldogs after the Wildcats were completely rolled over by South Carolina a week earlier. Kentucky out-gained the Bulldogs 284-262 in total yards. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/carson-beck-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carson Beck<\/a>, who many believe could be the number one pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, only threw for 164 yards and zero touchdowns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alabama remained at four, dismantling the Wisconsin Badgers 42-10 in what was the most impressive win in the SEC this week. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/jalen-milroe-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Milroe\u2019s<\/a> five-touchdown performance has him tied for second in the Heisman odds. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ole Miss held tight at five this week, even though they let Wake Forest stay in the game too long. The score was 23-6 in the third quarter when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/jaxson-dart-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaxson Dart<\/a> threw an interception seemingly giving the Demon Deacons an opening. On the next drive, Wake Forest turned it over on downs and the Rebels scored on their next three possessions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tennessee and Missouri flip-flopped spots, so the Volunteers rose to six while the Tigers fell to seven. The Volunteers embarrassed lowly Kent State with a decisive 71-0 victory while Missouri had a battle with 24th-ranked Boston College. The Tigers were down 14-3 early in the game before rattling off 24 straight points. That was enough to hold on for a 27-21 win. Both teams play big SEC games next week. Missouri faces Vanderbilt and Tennessee heads to Oklahoma for a game against the 15th-ranked Sooners, who didn\u2019t move in this week\u2019s rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LSU managed to hold onto the 16th spot even though they almost blew their game against South Carolina. The Gamecocks had to play their backup quarterback Robby Ashford after starter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/lanorris-sellers-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LaNorris Sellers<\/a> got injured. Ashford managed only a 3.9 QBR once he took over. LSU made multiple mistakes and the refs helped them with a non-existent offensive pass interference call that negated a huge gain. South Carolina fumbled two plays later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The unranked Texas A&amp;M Aggies snuck in to take the 25th spot this week <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/09\/16\/gators-must-make-changes-texas-am-analysis\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">after handedly beating Florida 33-20<\/a>. The SEC currently has nine teams in the top 25, the most of any conference. The only other SEC team to receive top-25 votes was South Carolina who only got three. There are still 13 teams above them who have received more votes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64445\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64445\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-64445\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Top ranked Texas in college football rankings\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/09\/USATSI_24251079_168400536_lowres.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64445\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo courtesy: Aaron E. Martinez\/American-Statesman \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas Longhorns became the top-ranked team in the AP college football power rankings this week after destroying UTSA on Saturday 56-7. The oblique injury to Heisman front-runner Quinn Ewers didn\u2019t concern the voters as it doesn\u2019t seem too serious. It helps when you have arguably the best backup quarterback in the country in top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5300,"featured_media":64445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35574,35584,35586,35582,3,35587,35576],"tags":[35,65,86,383,258,20,59,204],"class_list":["post-64425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-alabama-crimson-tide","category-lsu-tigers","category-missouri-tigers","category-ole-miss-rebels","category-sec","category-tennessee-volunteers","category-texas-longhorns","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-missouri-tigers","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-sec","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-texas-longhorns"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77935,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64425\/revisions\/77935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}