Ever-changing AP Top 25 reflects craziness of the season. Miami, Utah, UCLA somehow still unbeaten

Three unbeaten teams remain in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the fewest at this point in a season in 49 years, and a run of upsets have caused The Associated Press Top 25 to undergo major revisions the last three weeks.

No. 1 Miami was the only team in this week's poll to hold its spot from last week, when every single spot had a different team from the week before.

All of this has put a lot of one- and two-loss teams into desperation mode as the race heats up for College Football Playoff spots.

Experts will tell you revenue sharing, NIL money and the ease of transferring have caused talent to be more widely distributed and, in turn, narrowed the competitive gap on the field.

It's more fun to just say this season is certifiably nuts and on the way to being the most chaotic since the “Year of the Upset” in 2007. That season opened with Appalachian State knocking off fifth-ranked Michigan and got wilder by the week.

This season, five of the top seven teams lost in Week 7, and three more top-10 teams went down Saturday to make it 10 in the last three weeks. Three teams ranked either No. 1 or 2 have lost to an unranked opponent over that span.

Miami, No. 6 Utah and No. 7 UCLA have escaped the madness so far. Each are 7-0 and have combined to play just two opponents that were in the Top 25 at the time of the game.

Red-letter games are coming in two weeks when Miami visits No. 5 Notre Dame and Utah hosts No. 8 BYU. UCLA, which beat a 13th-ranked Oregon before the Ducks got knocked out of the poll, might not see another ranked opponent in the regular season now that Southern California has fallen out.

USC, then No. 16, was among five Top 25 teams that lost to unranked opponents Saturday. Fifth-year Trojans coach Lincoln Riley expected to have his best team this year, but the 24-7 defeat at Wisconson left USC with two losses heading into consecutive games against No. 2 Ohio State and No. 4 Indiana.

“As you see across college football right now, it's a game of just ‘you got to hang in there.’ There's a lot of teams getting beat, a lot of teams getting beat on the road," Riley said. "There's a lot of parity right now and the toughest teams and the teams that can battle back from losses or tough moments like this will be the ones standing in the end.”

There are nine two-loss teams sitting between Nos. 10 and 25 in the poll, with Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, LSU, Tennessee and Florida among them. The way those Southeastern Conference teams have taken turns beating up on each other, the playoff committee might twist itself into knots trying to untangle those resumes.

“The room for error is definitely smaller now,” Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss said after his team's 34-27 loss at Texas.

The Big 12, true to form, also is tightly bunched. Texas Tech dropped from No. 8 to No. 13 following its 37-24 loss at unranked Cincinnati. The Red Raiders have a ranked win over Houston, and No. 22 Arizona has won five straight entering this week's game in Lubbock. Even though Tech has only one loss, it's in a group of four teams a game behind first-place Utah.

“For us to control and get where we want to get," Tech coach Joey McGuire said, “we're going to have to win out.”

Six teams were unbeaten through Week 8 last year and three of them — Indiana, Ohio State and Texas A&M — went on to make the playoff.

Two years ago at this point, there were six unbeatens and none reached the first 12-team playoff.

Don't look now, but Northwestern is 6-1, winner of four straight and its transfer quarterback is enjoying a career revival.

Northwestern is tied with Arizona for No. 20 in the poll and is the biggest surprise in the Big Ten outside of UCLA.

Offense was the longtime problem for the Wildcats, but first-year coordinator Chip Kelly and quarterback Aidan Chiles have teamed up to make it go. Northwestern is third in the conference in total offense and scoring, averaging 436 yards and 34.7 points per game. That's up about 90 yards and 11 points per game from last season.

Chiles is the only quarterback in the country who has two games with at least three touchdown passes and two rushing TDs, accomplishing the feat most recently in a 42-14 win over Rutgers.

The Wildcats' only loss was 29-23 to Indiana, and they are bowl-eligible for a second straight year. They go to Oregon and host Iowa before playing what could be their game of the year at No. 2 Ohio State on Nov. 14.

Something's brewing in Albuquerque. New Mexico is 6-1 and off to its best start since 1997. With Saturday's 21-16 win over North Dakota State , Jason Eck set the school record for coaching wins in the first two seasons. Eck has 15 with at least six more games this season. Attendance for the NDSU game was 34,794, the largest for a non-New Mexico State game since 2005. ... Utah has won 13 straight games for the longest active streak in the FBS and Morgan Scalley is the first Utah coach to win his first eight games and first to start his first full season with a 7-0 record. ... Any coach will tell you that getting off the field on third down is a big key to success. In its last six games, UCLA is holding its opponent to a 12-for-70 clip on third downs (17%).

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