The new AP Top 25 poll will have yet another debate for who is No. 1 as voters turn in their ballots after a thunderous Week 5 slate..
And while we are projecting multiple -- three or more -- teams to receive first-place votes, Saturday night's statement win in Tuscaloosa has Alabama poised to be the third No. 1 team in the country of the 2024 season. If you consider that Georgia's 13 first-place votes from last week's balloting are likely gone, those voters who viewed the Bulldogs as the best team in the country -- ahead of Texas and Ohio State -- are going to think highly of how Alabama went wire-to-wire against the Bulldogs in one of the biggest games of the year so far.
From there, all it would take is about a dozen of the 44 voters who had Texas at No. 1 last week to swap that out for Alabama given the strength of the win compared to the Longhorns' best win -- earlier this year on the road over Michigan . The debate for No.
1 would be more unique if it hadn't already become one of the primary storylines in the AP top 25 poll this season. When Texas first jumped Georgia for No. 1 in the wake of its win in Ann Arbor, the Longhorns did so by carrying just about a dozen more first-place votes (35-to-23).
Alabama's climb to No. 1, as we're projecting, would carry perhaps an even tighter vote split. Unfortunately for Texas, sometimes you don't drop in the rankings as much as you get jumped, and it's hard to imagine a rankings booster more powerful than what the Crimson Tide di.