College Football

Baylor leapfrogs OSU, Alabama still on top in poll

Baylor overtook Ohio State in the Associated Press college football poll and Alabama became just the seventh team to hold the No. 1 ranking for 13 straight polls in a season.

The third-ranked Bears slipped ahead of the fourth-ranked Buckeyes after Baylor beat Texas Tech, 60-34, and Ohio State won, 60-35, at Illinois on Saturday. Baylor has 1,351 points and Ohio State has 1,343.

Alabama remained No. 1, with 55 first-place votes from the media poll released Sunday. No. 2 Florida State has five first-place votes.

Oregon was fifth and Auburn was sixth.

Baylor plays No. 11 Oklahoma State in Stillwater on Saturday, its toughest test yet.

Win that, and the Bears could start pulling away from the Buckeyes, who have won a school-record 22 straight games but get graded on a tougher scale than any team in the country.

Alabama has been No. 1 since the preseason. Only six preseason No. 1 teams have had longer uninterrupted stays than the Tide, including Southern California in 2004 and Florida State in 1999, the only wire-to-wire champions.

The other four preseason No. 1 teams that have spent longer at No. 1 than Alabama all either lost in a bowl game (Nebraska, 1983; Southern California, 2005; Ohio State 2006) or lost in a conference title game (Oklahoma, 2003).

The Tide face Chattanooga this week, part of the SEC’s scheduling strategy to work in a late-season breather. Florida State has embraced it as well. The Seminoles play Idaho.

Moving into the rankings was No. 23 Southern California, No. 24 Mississippi and No. 25 Duke. The Blue Devils were last ranked in December 1994.