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Thanks to another dominating performance — and a very shaky one by Georgia — Texas has risen to the No. 1 spot in Sunday’s new AP Poll.
It’s the Longhorns first time at the top of the AP rankings since 2008.
https://twitter.com/TexasFootball/status/1835379156596527281
The last time Texas was ranked No. 1 was Oct. 12, 2008. The following week, Texas lost to Texas Tech in Lubbock on a last-second touchdown by legendary receiver Michael Crabtree. The Longhorns finished that season ranked in the top-5, but never recovered their top-overall ranking. The next season, Texas played for the national championship but never got higher than No. 2 in the AP Poll.
Texas took out UTSA at home in a 56-7 rout on Saturday night, which was expected. What wasn’t expected was then top-ranked Georgia struggling so mightily in a 13-12 victory at Kentucky in the same time slot.
The combination of the 2 games nudged the Longhorns from No. 2 into the top spot a day later.
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Texas and Georgia will meet on the field in about a month, with the Bulldogs traveling to Austin for a showdown on Oct. 19. If that game was taking place in Week 4, we’d have a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showcase. But it’s not, and so who knows where these 2 SEC behemoths will be ranked when they actually play in about 5 weeks.
Coming into Sunday, Texas was 10th all-time in appearances at No. 1 in the AP Poll since the poll’s inception in 1936. Texas now has 46 all-time appearances atop the AP Poll, per the College Poll Archive.
Coincidentally, the program just ahead of Texas in all-time appearances at No. 1 is Georgia, which has been ranked No. 1 54 times.
Alabama has been ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll the most times, on 140 occasions.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
