College Football Rankings, Week 3: Don't Look For USC To Rejoin AP Poll Top 25 After Win

The USC Trojans improved their record to 2-0 on Saturday, but it wasn't necessarily pretty. The Trojans held on to beat the Utah Utes 23-14 in a close game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the first ever college football game played in the Pac-12 Conference. But even though they won, don't expect USC to return to the AP poll top 25 when the latest college football rankings are released on Sunday morning.

USC opened the season as the No. 25 team in the country in the Associated Press preseason poll, but dropped out of the top 25, down to No. 28 after their lackluster 19-17 win in their season opener against the Minnesota Golden Gophers on September 3. Even if the Trojans do gain in the AP poll based on their win over No. 35 Utah, they won't gain that much because there were only three upsets in the top 25 this week:

• No. 16 Mississippi State lost on the road to No. 27 Auburn, 41-34
• No. 21 Missouri lost on the road on Friday, in overtime, to No. 26 Arizona State, 37-30
• No. 23 Penn State lost at home to No. 3 Alabama, 27-11

It is possible that all three of those teams could drop out of the top 25, but that seems like the only way USC will move into the top 25. They won't leap either ASU or Auburn, the two unranked teams ahead of them. No. 24 Texas struggled to a 17-16 home win over BYU, so the Longhorns' hold on a top 25 spot could be tenuous, but frankly USC wasn't that impressive in their win either.

Look for the Trojans to be on the outside looking in at the top 25 when the AP poll is released on Sunday. USC is ineligible this season for the coaches poll, in the second and final year of their NCAA sanctions stemming from the Reggie Bush infractions.

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