The first regular-season AP college football poll of the year has both the University of Alabama and Auburn University in the top 10.
After defeating Duke handily over the Labor Day weekend, the Crimson Tide held onto their preseason ranking as the nation’s second-best team.
While coach Nick Saban’s team will have their sights on being nothing short of the best this season, the program’s consistent success led to yet another record being broken this week.
According to The Associated Press, this marked the 56th consecutive week, dating to November 8, 2015, that UA ranked in the top five of the AP poll.
That breaks a tie with the University of Miami, which went 55 straight weeks in the same metric from October 8, 2000-October 26, 2003.
The poll also came as good news for Auburn, which rose six spots to number 10 after a comeback victory against the University of Oregon on Saturday night.
There were a total of six SEC teams in the AP’s top 12 this week.
The Associated Press began its college football poll on October 19, 1936, and it is now the longest-running poll of those that award national titles at the end of the season. The AP preseason poll was started in 1950. A panel of 62 sports writers and broadcasters from around the country votes on the poll weekly.
This weekly AP poll is presented by Regions Bank.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn