The AP Top 25 poll reshuffled after Texas Longhorns topped Ohio State, but the Buckeyes' five-spot drop exposes a flaw in how voters weigh losses.
Page S2From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 14 September 2026
AP crowns Texas No. 1 off one Saturday, drops Ohio State five spots for the same game.
Hot Mic Moment
The September fifth story that opened with Arch Manning's Heisman campaign for No. 5 Texas was built around a DraftKings Predictions promo code — spend five dollars, get two hundred — run in the body of the New York Post's football preview, sportsbook copy sitting inside what read as a news article. The political desk should be asking how often the preview is actually the ad now — one example turned up in a single week without looking for it.
Gushis side
Texas rose to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 this week after defeating Ohio State, and Fox News reports the loss sent the Buckeyes tumbling eight spots down the board — proof, in this reporter's estimation, that the human polling apparatus can turn on a single Saturday like a jilted spouse.
The road to that Saturday started September fifth, when both clubs opened at home — Texas installed at No. 5 against Texas State, Ohio State hosting Ball State the same afternoon, per the New York Post's coverage that week. By September seventh, CBS Sports had the two programs bookending its top five power rankings, Ohio State and Texas, ahead of what CBS itself called the Week 2 showdown.
Then came September eleventh, when CBS Sports' SportsLine model ran ten thousand simulations on that very Ohio State-Texas matchup as part of its Week 2 predictions slate. Two days later, on September thirteenth, CBS Sports published the result under a different banner — "Week 3 college football rankings" — with Texas installed at No. 1. Same numbers, evidently, simply carried forward a slot.
Trudyher side
Eight spots, Gus? Read your own wire. Fox News, September fourteenth, calls it "the Buckeyes' five-spot drop." Five. Not eight. You've inflated the fall before the column's even warm.
So far, so accurate.
It is not the same numbers, sugar. CBS's own headline says Week 3. The real Week 2 numbers are the September eleventh predictions — the simulations, the picks for Ohio State-Texas, Oklahoma-Michigan, Iowa-Iowa State. You've got two different Tuesdays wearing the same jersey. Go lie down before you file the next paragraph.
Take a breath, Gus — that's not a conspiracy, that's a receipt. The Post ran the DraftKings promo code inside its September fifth Texas-Texas State preview, the trade-five-get-two-hundred line sitting right there with the Heisman talk. You're right.
“They tell you a poll ranks the best teams in America, then a five-spot swing happens off one Saturday, while a sportsbook writes the preview before the game's even kicked off. That's not sports journalism, that's marketing wearing a stopwatch. Somebody's cashing in on both the swing and the story, and it sure isn't the guys who played the game.”
“Look, DraftKings running a promo code inside a football preview — that's just modern sponsored content, every outlet monetizes game week now, nothing hidden about it... did I say hidden? Nobody said hidden. Promo codes and previews have run together for years, that's just how the sports page pays the light bill these days.”
The receipts
SportsLine's advanced model has locked in its Week 2 college football predictions from 10,000 simulations
The Longhorns are the new No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 after a big win vs. the Buckeyes
Ben Bolch’s Big Ten Power Rankings Game of the week: Michigan State (2-0) at Notre Dame (2-0), 4:30 p.m. PDT Saturday on NBC. After notching two victories in his redemption tour following his firing from Northwestern, new Spartans coach Pat Fitzgerald will quickly find out if he can work some early magic against one of...
· DraftKings Predictions promo code: Spend $5, Get $200 for Texas vs. Texas State from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
· What Channel Is The Ohio State Game On Today? Where To Watch Ohio State vs. Ball State from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
· College Football Power Rankings: Ohio State, Texas bookend top five ahead of Week 2 showdown from the morgue, 7 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.