Alabama Is New No. 1 Team In The Nation After Routing Michigan 41-14

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The 2011 national champions took another step towards repeating.

The Alabama Crimson Tide jumped over preseason No. 1 USC after defeating the Michigan Wolverines 41-14 in a nationally televised game on Saturday night in Dallas.

The team is now number one in both the Associated Press and the USA Today college football polls.

Alabama began the season as No. 2 in the AP poll before jumping ahead of the USC Trojans for the first spot. The team received 28 more first-place votes than last week in the AP poll and also received 37 votes from the USA Today coaches' poll.

Alabama has been voted the number one team 16 times under coach Nick Saban.

The national champions return 13 starters from last year's team and are now ranked ahead of USC, LSU, Oregon and Oklahoma, who round out the top-five.

USC still received 11 first-place votes in the AP poll after throttling Hawaii 49-10, while LSU got four votes.  The first seven teams in both the AP poll and USA Today poll are the same, with Florida State and Georgia at sixth and seventh, respectively.

The rest of the AP top-ten includes Arkansas at eight, and South Carolina and West Virginia tied for ninth. The same three teams also finished in the top-ten of the USA Today poll, but with West Virginia at eight, South Carolina at nine and Arkansas tenth.

Michigan dropped 11 spots after losing to the Crimson Tide, falling all the way to No. 19. The team is the only one with a loss among the top-25 in the AP poll and they also lost the one first place vote they had received in the preseason poll.

Quarterback Denard Robinson took criticism after the game for his play and will have to perform much better if he hopes to be in the Heisman Race later this season.

Notre Dame moved into the top-25 for the first time this year at No. 22 after beating Navy in Ireland 50-10. Louisville also entered the AP poll at No. 24.

Dropping out of the AP poll was Boise State after a loss to Michigan State 17-13. The team had a streak of 62 straight weeks in the top-25, which was the second longest in the nation to Alabama. Boise came in at No. 25 in the USA Today Poll, while Michigan State rose to No. 11 in the AP poll.

Other teams that received votes in both polls include: Utah, Missouri, Georgia Tech, Ohio, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Baylor and Auburn.

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