Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — With a 34-23 win over Washington Saturday, Utah matches its last year regular season win record of eight games with three games left to play. The win also gave the Utes a boost in the national rankings that were released Sunday.
Utah moved to No. 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and to No. 13 in the Amway USA Today Coaches Poll. Utah was previously ranked No. 13 in the AP Poll and No. 14 in the Coaches Poll.
Although an interesting look at how select members of the media and coaches evaluate the various football teams around the country, the AP Poll and Coaches Poll are now overshadowed by the official College Football Playoff rankings that were released for the first time last week. In those rankings Utah was slated as the No. 12 team in the country. Utah will find out where it stands Tuesday evening.
On Saturday, two teams ranked in the College Football Playoff rankings lost, giving Utah an opportunity to make up some ground and to potentially open up a spot for at least one Pac-12 team to crack the Top 10. Currently, No. 11 Stanford and Utah have the best and only shot of obtaining a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Three teams from the Pac-12 remain in the Top 25 of both polls with Stanford still as the highest-ranked team from the conference at No. 7/7, followed by Utah (No. 10/13), and UCLA (No. 18/18). Three additional teams, USC, Oregon and Washington State, continue to receive votes.
In the AP Poll, Clemson beat out Ohio State for the No. 1 spot after spending the entire season there. Clemson received 31 first-place votes, while Ohio State received 26. Clemson is followed by Ohio State, Alabama, Baylor and Oklahoma State.
The second week of the College Football Playoff rankings will be released Tuesday at 5 p.m. MST on ESPN.
