Most Underrated College Football Teams in AP Poll For Week 2

The AP Poll presented plenty of teams getting the short end of the respect stick from voters.

Demond Williams and Washington won their Week 1 rivalry game by two scores-- and dropped in the AP Poll. (Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images) | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Week 1 is in the books and despite a ton of uneven competition, the AP poll voters have dropped their latest set of rankings, moving teams somewhat arbitrarily up and down. For fans whose teams didn't get their due, it can be an emotional time. Here are a handful of teams getting a raw deal in the AP poll ahead of Week 2.

Oregon

Play good teams earlier, many pundits suggested after Week 1. Oregon makes the opposite case. By holding off a tough Boise team (now No. 26), they fell from No. 2 to No. 6. Notre Dame is the only one of the teams that jumped Oregon that faced any sort of competition, but here sit the Ducks.

Odds are pretty good that this one will end up looking silly. Boise is one of the handful of G5 hopefuls for a College Football Playoff berth and by the end of the year, people will see this score and think, "Yeah, why drop Oregon?" Or they could just think it now.

Texas A&M

Mike Elko and Texas A&M dropped two spots in the AP Poll after a 50-point win. (Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images) | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The Aggies took a two-spot drop for beating Missouri State 50-0. Yes, one of the spots was the rise of LSU (although it's not clear how much better than Missouri State the Clemson Tigers are). But the other spot? Alabama beat East Carolina 48-10 and jumped a spot. Oklahoma beat UTEP 51-0 and fell one spot instead of two. The Aggies took something of a needless hit here.

Washington

The Huskies played their annual rivalry game with Washington. Yes, it was something of a grinder at 24-10, but they never trailed and had a solid win over one of the more competitive Week 1 opponents to be had. They promptly dipped two points while voters jumped teams like Penn State
(beating Marshall 45-0) and Tennessee (beating Furman 56-9). Who showed more in Week 1? Seems like the Huskies were the answer.

Boise State

For that matter, the near-upset of the weekend left the team doing the upsetting still outside the Top 25. It's not as if Boise's bona fides are unknown. They're perennial CFP contenders and this game felt not unlike the Week 2 battle with Oregon in 2024, when Oregon ended up No. 1 and Boise ended up in the CFP. It's interesting, because the poll includes a Louisville team that lost a one-score game to Ole Miss (ranked well below Oregon) and a Virginia team that was off in Week 1. Couldn't the Broncos have made the climb?