To no one's surprise, Auburn winds up the college football season ranked No. 1 with their 14-0 record and their 22-19 win yesterday over Auburn in the BCS Championship game.
To the surprise of... well, some, anyway, TCU received three first-place votes for their 13-0 undefeated season and win over Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin, for that loss, dropped to seventh overall.
Only two other Big Ten schools wound up in the final AP Top 25: Ohio State, ranked fifth, and Michigan State, ranked 14th. Nebraska, who joins the Big Ten next year, wound up 20th. Boise State, who could possibly have had a case for the BCS title game except for their loss to Nevada, is the second-lowest-ranked one-loss team at No. 9. (Nevada is lower at No. 11.)
Complete rankings after the jump; first-place votes in parentheses.
1 Auburn (56) 14-0
2 TCU (3) 13-0
3 Oregon 12-1
4 Stanford 12-1
5 Ohio State 12-1
6 Oklahoma 12-2
7 Wisconsin 11-2
8 LSU 11-2
9 Boise State 12-1
10 Alabama 10-3
11 Nevada 13-1
12 Arkansas 10-3
13 Oklahoma State 11-2
14 Michigan State 11-2
15 Mississippi State 9-4
16 Virginia Tech 11-3
17 Florida State 10-4
18 Missouri 10-3
19 Texas A&M 9-4
20 Nebraska 10-4
21 UCF 11-3
22 South Carolina 9-5
23 Maryland 9-4
24 Tulsa 10-3
25 North Carolina State 9-4