South Florida beat Florida 18-16 in the Swamp on Saturday night, earning the Bulls their first AP Top 25 ranking in seven years at No. 18. Haley Sawyer, who covers USC athletics for the Orange County Register, moved Florida up two spots to No. 14 on her ballot after the loss, while keeping USF unranked.
The ballot drew predictable pushback on social media from USF fans, in particular. When pressed about moving Florida up after a home loss to an unranked team, Sawyer declined to explain her reasoning.
“I don’t want to go too much into my process or logic,” she said during a recent podcast appearance, “but I will say, I appreciate everybody’s interaction on social media and all of your feedback.”
USC beat reporter @haleymsawyer for the @ocregister joins the podcast to discuss her experiences reporting on USC, the open practice for men’s basketball, her impressions of Coach Musselman, Alijah Arenas, Gabe Dynes, Chad Baker-Mazara & Terrance Williams, and her AP ballot pic.twitter.com/3CyWOIAt20
— USCHoops (@USCHoopsdotcom) September 8, 2025
That’s one way to handle it.
Sawyer did explain her general approach, saying she considers both week-to-week performance and the overall season, including what kind of culture a team has developed. She defended the AP poll system as imperfect but functional.
“There’s tons of people that vote on the AP poll,” she said. “It’s not a perfect system, but at the end of the day, no matter who you pick, it does even out, because there’s so many people that vote.”
She also seemed to view the controversy as part of the fun, saying, “It’s really fun for discussion. It doesn’t probably matter in the end, but I’m glad that people are having a really good time with it.”
The rest of the AP voters handled things differently. USF jumped into the rankings at No. 18, while Florida dropped out entirely after losing at home. And despite Florida’s exit from the poll, Missouri and Auburn’s entry gave the SEC a record 11 ranked teams.
All #APTop25 Week 3 ballots: pic.twitter.com/cggfsswBMI
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) September 7, 2025
For USF, the ranking caps a remarkable turnaround. The Bulls hadn’t been ranked since 2018 and used their upset victory to announce they’re back in the college football conversation after years of rebuilding.
The AP poll consists of 62 voters who apply their own criteria when ranking teams. Most of the time, that produces reasonable results. Sometimes you get a voter who moves a team up after they lose at home to an unranked opponent.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.