It turns out that all was needed for Clemson football to move up in the AP Poll was for the Michigan Wolverines to struggle against Indiana for a half and for the Tigers to dominate the second half of their game against Boston College.
Clemson moved up to number four in the latest AP Poll, trailing only Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama.
There was a shakeup at the top with Georgia returning to number 1 after a 42-10 win over Auburn, while Alabama dropped all the way to number 3 after a close win over a middling Texas A&M team, and Ohio State moved up to number two.
Michigan struggled to a 10-10 halftime tie, before blowing out Indiana in the second half and dropped to number 5 before their highly anticipated matchup with Penn State next Saturday.
Numbers 6-10 are Tennessee, USC, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss and Penn State.
There are two top 10 matchups on tap next week as Alabama visits Tennessee and Penn State travels to Michigan, so there’s more shakeup to come next week.
The second ten are UCLA, Oregon, TCU, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Mississippi State, Kansas State, Syracuse, Kansas and Utah.
Those rankings mean Clemson has wins over numbers 14 and 15, with number 18 on the schedule in two weeks.
The final five are Cincinnati, Texas, Kentucky, Illinois and James Madison.
The second half of the Clemson football schedule features 4 teams that are ranked or received votes in this week’s AP Poll
Future Clemson opponents, Notre Dame, Florida State and South Carolina were among the teams receiving votes, meaning 4 of the Tigers 6 regular season opponents are either ranked or receiving votes in the AP Poll.
Miami and Louisville are the other remaining opponents in the regular season for Clemson.
Clemson travels to Florida State on Saturday, before hosting Syracuse on October 22nd and then having October 29 off and traveling to Notre Dame on November 5.
The Tigers defense is getting healthier slowly, but steadily and has performed well over the last two weeks after struggling earlier in the season.