Another week of college football has come and gone, which means there\u2019s another AP Poll for everybody to complain about.<\/p>\n
The weekend that was in college football produced some thrilling results that had fans on the edge of their seats waiting for the new AP Poll to come out on Sunday. No. 4 Ole Miss fell to No. 21 Florida. No. 20 Oregon spanked No. 12 USC. An exciting Mississippi State team that crept into the top-25 last week validated its entrance with a win over No. 19 Missouri. Not to mention top-ranked Texas slid by No. 14 Tennessee by a field goal.<\/p>\n
There was bound to be a fair bit of shakeup in the AP Poll. But it appears as if, once again<\/a>, voters were not up to the task, at least according to college football\u2019s voice of reason, Josh Pate.<\/p>\n Pate, who recently got his own weekly show on ESPN, took to his daily podcast on Monday to go after voters for what he views as some egregious misses in the most recent AP Top 25. Some of the voting was so bad in Pate\u2019s estimation that the only explanation is that the voters are on drugs.<\/p>\n I have to insist we shut down the AP Poll until someone figures out what\u2019s going on pic.twitter.com\/Tv0Pb3okiH<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) September 28, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think we need qualifiers to be an AP Poll voter,\u201d Pate began. \u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018Josh, what kind of qualifier?\u2019 You need to have gone through the D.A.R.E. program,\u201d the college football commentator insisted, suggesting that AP voters must be in some drug-addled daze to put together the poll they did.<\/p>\n His first issue was with Florida\u2019s ranking. The Gators moved up from 21 to eight after beating the breaks off of top-five Ole Miss, but Pate thinks they didn\u2019t move up far enough.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would look, and they would say, \u2018Well, we bumped Florida up 13 spots.\u2019 That\u2019s not real logic! That\u2019s just something you say; that\u2019s bumper sticker logic. You\u2019re supposed to drive by, and I read that, and then it fades off in the distance, and I don\u2019t think through it critically, nor did you. You didn\u2019t bump Florida up anything. It\u2019s not real. It\u2019s just off feelings. It\u2019s not real anyway. That\u2019s not a reward. It\u2019s not like Jon Sumrall\u2019s standing in line [saying], \u2018Please.\u2019 There\u2019s a 13-spot bump. They went and disemboweled a top-five team last night. They went and ripped Ole Miss\u2019 spine out. They hung more yardage on them than Texas and Tennessee had combined. I don\u2019t care where they were last week. I don\u2019t care if they were unranked last week. Especially if you do this properly, early in the season there should be massive fluctuation in this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Pate\u2019s next issue was with Missouri, a team that is still ranked after losing to Mississippi State.<\/p>\n \u201cMissouri is still ranked. Why? Missouri was 19th based off feels last week. They\u2019re 25th based off drug use, essentially, because I don\u2019t know what on the resume constitutes being a top-25 team.\u201d<\/p>\n He then turns to Mississippi State, which moved up eight spots, but is still, according to Pate, hurt by its own brand.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, what would it take for Mississippi State to be a top-five team? They just beat Missouri. \u2026Mississippi State just got a ranked win last night. They have three power-four wins. I am firmly convinced there are voters that still haven\u2019t watched them play. \u2018Oh, they got that quarterback, right?\u2019 That concludes our Mississippi State scouting report from an alarming number of AP voters. Drugs. Drugs! That\u2019s all you can say at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n On the opposite end of the brand spectrum is USC, a team that Pate is perplexed is \u201cstill 18th\u201d after a home loss to Oregon.<\/p>\n \u201cUSC\u2019s on another level though. \u2026Not only do they fail miserably, they fail miserably against Oregon\u2019s backup quarterback, and still get beat by double-digits at home. So it\u2019s like the annual pantsing of USC in a prime spot happens, and where do they fall? Outside the top-25? Outside of the top-30? No, they\u2019re 18th. Why are they still 18th? You know the answer. Drugs is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Pate was not alone. In fact, several other prominent football personalities agreed and brought additional receipts. ESPN\u2019s Kevin Clark dutifully noted that two AP voters simply forgot to rank Miami, currently the No. 4 team in the country, for the past three weeks. One of these voters ignored questions about his poll, and the other deleted his social media to avoid the backlash.<\/p>\n There are *two* voters who simply just forgot to rank Miami the last three weeks. Straight up just forgot. Didn\u2019t really address it, one guy ignored all follow ups and the other deleted his social media to avoid talking about it. What is the point of this poll? https:\/\/t.co\/gnbhA9GIw4<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) September 29, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Responding to Clark, Yahoo Sports college football writer Dan Wolken advocated that polls like the AP\u2019s should be abolished altogether. \u201cThey don\u2019t serve a purpose anymore,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s probably time to just get rid of the polls. They don\u2019t serve a purpose anymore. https:\/\/t.co\/AwsPhUYYJV<\/a><\/p>\n