College football | Week 6 AP Poll

Texas stays No. 1 as Alabama climbs to sixth

The top five remained unchanged, while Missouri surged and Pittsburgh entered the rankings.

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The Week 6 AP Top 25 college football poll, reported by NCAA FBS on October 4, 2026, kept Texas at No. 1 and left the rest of the top five in place.

Alabama rose one spot to No. 6 after beating Mississippi State, while Pittsburgh made its first appearance in the poll at No. 25.

Texas leads an unchanged top five

Texas received 61 first-place votes and 1,737 points to remain No. 1. Georgia was second, followed by Notre Dame, Miami (Florida) and Ohio State. Miami received two first-place votes.

Alabama moved from seventh to sixth with a 5-0 record. Indiana dropped one position to seventh, while BYU rose from 10th to eighth. Ole Miss stayed ninth and LSU advanced one place to 10th.

Missouri rises as Florida drops

Missouri climbed 11 places to No. 14 after defeating Florida, which fell eight spots to 16th. Tennessee was 15th, between the two teams.

The poll also placed Mississippi State 17th and Ole Miss ninth. NCAA FBS noted a sequence of recent results among SEC teams: Missouri beat Florida, Florida beat Ole Miss, and Mississippi State beat Missouri. Ole Miss had also defeated LSU, now ranked 10th.

Pittsburgh enters at No. 25

Pittsburgh joined the poll in 25th place with a 5-0 record after handing Virginia Tech its first loss. The Panthers took the final position from Kentucky, which dropped out despite winning.

NCAA FBS reported that Kentucky was the latest ranked team to fall out of the poll after a victory, following earlier examples involving Michigan, Washington and Oklahoma.

Two ranked matchups on the schedule

The poll report identified two ranked-versus-ranked games for the coming week: No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama, and No. 21 UCLA at No. 13 Oregon.

Other listed games involving ranked teams included Oklahoma against No. 1 Texas, No. 10 LSU at Kentucky, Texas A&M at No. 14 Missouri, No. 19 Southern California at Penn State, and No. 20 Iowa at Washington.

Newsroom

The October 4 poll kept Texas on top and set up a top-six meeting between Georgia and Alabama in the following week’s schedule.

Byline

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Controversy column

Editorial transparency · How this story was created

This article was prepared by the automated Ranko newsroom using tournament data recorded on Ranko Universe at the time of generation. Subsequent updates or corrections may not yet appear here.

This report summarises the results and standings available when it was prepared.

AI-generated editorial illustration. Not a photograph or an official game screenshot.