BYU moved to No. 1 on Josh Furlong's ballot after the Cougars beat Notre Dame in a top-10 battle Saturday evening. Furlong submitted the ballot to the the same night, putting BYU at the center of the Week 7 ranking fight before the consensus rankings were due Sunday afternoon.
Furlong did not treat the move as a coin flip. He said BYU looked like a team ready to fight from the jump, forced Notre Dame to play from behind and got the job done after the Irish pulled ahead. In his view, BYU earned the top spot when the pressure was highest, and that is why the ranking changed now rather than later.
The ballot was the kind of list that reflects a volatile weekend more than a settled order. Furlong placed Miami at No. 2 and said a case could be made for the Hurricanes to be No. 1, but he still chose BYU. He also kept Ohio State in the top three, said the Buckeyes remained hitched to Jeremiah Smith after their win over Indiana and dropped Georgia after its loss to its rival.
That same ballot also pushed Notre Dame to No. 5 after its close loss to BYU. Furlong said UCLA was the last undefeated team from the Big Ten, called Ole Miss a complete team after its win over Missouri and said Texas Tech showed out in a blowout of Arizona State. He added that Texas Tech had been behind BYU and Utah this season before that game, while Indiana's loss to Ohio State came after a miscue in the end zone and two missed field goals.
That leaves the ballot as a snapshot of one writer's read on a chaotic Saturday, not the final word. The consensus rankings were scheduled for Sunday afternoon, and the question hanging over that release was whether BYU's top-10 win had done enough to hold the top spot once the full count was in.
