Randy Smith: Longhorns Replace "Dawgs At Top Of Poll

With Georgia's struggles in their 13-12 win at Kentucky last week...coupled with the Texas Longhorns impressive 3-0 start...the weekly college football top-25 poll has a new number one team. Texas is now number one, with the Bulldogs dropping to the number two spot. With a game at home against Louisiana Tech this weekend, Texas will likely stay number one for a week or so.

Of course the Longhorns have a mega-match up in a couple of weeks with Alabama and that means the poll could change again. This is the first week that Texas has been on top of the college poll since the 2008 season. They spent three weeks on top of the polls before losing to Texas Tech late in the season. Texas leap-frogged Georgia even though starting quarterback Quinn Ewers left the game last week with UT San Antonio 56-7 with back up quarterback Arch Manning passing for 224 yards and throwing four touchdown passes. Manning has been rumored to be unhappy with the fact that Ewers has been the starter but you can't fault Ewers because he has played brilliantly for the past two seasons under Coach Steve Sarkisian. Manning who is a red-shirt freshman is the heir apparent to Ewers at Texas and Sarkisian has no problem putting Manning in any game.

Georgia was a 23 point favorite against Kentucky last week and I thought 23 points wasn't enough...based upon the 'Cats performance against unranked South Carolina the week before. How did that happen you might ask? Kentucky obviously went into the South Carolina flat but came out ready to play against the Bulldogs. The Wildcats' tough defense kept the high-flying Bulldog offense at bay all night, holding them to one touchdown and a couple of field goals. But 13 points was enough to win a game that can only be considered "ugly."

In the new poll, the Tennessee Volunteers leap-frogged Missouri into sixth place following the Tigers tough game with 24th ranked Boston College. Missouri won that game 27-21 while Tennessee was totally dismantling Kent State 71-0. Six of the top ten teams this week are from the SEC including six of the first seven . Altogether, nine of the top-25 teams are from the SEC and if you took the top 12 teams in the poll and made them playoff teams, half of the twelve team field would be from the SEC.

This week the SEC headliner will be in Norman, OK as the 16th ranked Sooners host 6th ranked Tennessee in the first SEC game for both teams in 2024. the game will be televised on ABC with ESPN's College Game Day coming to Norman for all the pre-game hype.