Michigan won the game on a Hail Mary and got dropped out of the AP Top 25 anyway. Why?

Michigan won the game against Western Michigan but lost most of its support in The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll.

Just like many viewers Saturday night, Top 25 voters were confused when one second was put back on the clock after it appeared time had run out at Michigan Stadium. And they were dazed when JJ Buchanan came down with Bryce Underwood's second Hail Mary pass to turn the four-touchdown-underdog Broncos' 12-7 upset into a 13-12 loss.

The Mid-American Conference submitted appeals to the NCAA and the College Football Playoff administration asking for the result to be overturned to let the record show the Broncos actually won the game for purposes of rankings, evaluations and selection deliberations. The NCAA said its rules don't allow a move like that and the CFP won't release its first rankings until November.

Top 25 voters have weighed in, though.

The Wolverines dropped from No. 16 in the preseason poll to out of the Top 25 altogether in the first regular-season poll. It was the biggest fall from ranked to unranked after a win since at least 2008.

Michigan had appeared on all 69 preseason ballots and was listed as high as No. 10 on one. The Wolverines were on just 22 ballots Tuesday.

Bob Asmussen of the Champaign (Illinois) News-Gazette, in his 16th year as a voter, put Michigan No. 12 on his preseason ballot and said he knew that was a mistake as he watched Michigan's offense sputter after scoring on its first possession. Voters sometimes hesitate to penalize a team that wins, but Michigan was going to drop off Asmussen's ballot regardless. Forty-six other voters agreed with him.

“I saw them lose in my mind, but they didn’t technically lose,” Asmussen said. “It was so easy to drop them because of how horrible they were.”

Kirk Bohls of the Houston Chronicle, in his fourth decade as a voter, had Michigan No. 20 on his preseason ballot but said the Wolverines looked nothing like a Top 25 team. Bohls said he was disturbed by the way the end of the game played out, and the Big Ten's statement about why 1 second was put on the clock after it showed zeroes didn't convince him.

“We were all watching and the Big Ten told us don’t believe what you just saw with your eyes, and it’s kind of hard to unsee that,” Bohls said.

Bohls said he'll be curious as to how the CFP selection committee will look at the game if Michigan ends up under consideration for an at-large playoff bid.

“Some people probably on the selection committee might view it as a loss or at the very least a tainted victory,” he said. “It could ultimately be a tie-breaker that goes against Michigan.”

Ohio State is No. 1 by a wide margin going into its showdown at No. 4 Texas this weekend but there is far from universal agreement on which team is best in the land.

Seven teams received first-place votes, the most since the same number got first-place votes in the 2016 preseason poll. It’s the most in a regular-season poll since seven teams got first-place votes Sept. 2, 2014.

No. 8 LSU's five first-place votes made the Tigers the lowest-ranked team to get at least one since ninth-ranked Texas A&M on Oct. 11, 2015. LSU hammered Clemson 51-10 in Lane Kiffin's first game as coach.

The Southeastern Conference occupies seven of the top 12 spots in the poll with No. 2 Georgia, No. 4 Texas, No. 8 LSU, No. 9 Mississippi, No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 12 Alabama. The SEC has a total of nine ranked teams with No. 18 Tennessee and No. 23 Missouri.

The SEC is the only conference to ever have seven teams in the top 12. The SEC also had that many in the top 12 the week of Oct. 5, 2025.

The Big Ten's 1-2 punch was short-lived: Ohio State and Oregon had given the Big Ten the top two teams in the preseason rankings for the first time in 65 years. The Buckeyes did their part to stay No. 1 with their rout of Ball State. The Ducks, tied with Boise State in the middle of the fourth quarter before winning 34-27, dropped to No. 6.

Still, the Big Ten has seven ranked teams with No. 5 Indiana, No. 14 USC, No. 16 Penn State, No. 19 Washington and No. 21 Iowa joining Ohio State and Oregon.

The Group of Six, which has not had a Top 25 team yet this season, does have Boise State with the most voting points among unranked teams while Memphis has the fifth-most. Those teams meet in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday for a game that could have major CFP implications. ... No. 7 Miami is ranked in the top 10 in a Week 1 in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2003-04. ... Six Top 25 teams play opponents from the Football Championship Subdivision this week.

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