Coming off a close conference victory over Northwestern 24-15, Wisconsin held steady in the polls. With no teams ranked in the top seven falling on Saturday, Wisconsin did just enough to maintain their ranking of No. 9 in the Coaches Poll and No. 8 in the AP Poll.

Let’s look at how the polls shape up for the rest of the Big Ten and across the nation.

The B1G

No. 5 Ohio State continued their stranglehold as the top ranked team in the conference, as they blew the doors off of Nebraska 48-7 on Saturday evening. The Buckeyes actually leapfrogged LSU in the polls to move up to that fifth spot.

No. 12 ranked Penn State also retained their ranking after a 59-point blowout over Maryland and Iowa moved up after a big home victory over Middle Tennessee State. Iowa now is ranked No. 14 in both polls.

Michigan rebounded nicely after last week’s loss to Wisconsin, with a dominant win over Rutgers (Editor’s note: who just fired their coach, natch). The Wolverines moved up two spots to No. 18 in the Coaches Poll and No. 19 in the AP Poll.

Michigan State slid back into the rankings, at No. 23, according to the coaches.

Nationwide musings

• After barely beating North Carolina, Clemson dropped out of the No. 1 spot for the first time this season. Alabama took their spot atop both of the rankings.
• Notre Dame continued to stay in the top ten after their victory this weekend over Virginia. Virginia fell the most for any team still in the rankings.
• Two loss Texas A&M is still the only team that has lost more than one game in the polls.
• Wake Forest, and SMU are the only undefeated five win team in the rankings that are not in the top ten.

• The B1G and SEC lead all of the Power 5 conferences with six ranked teams each. The other main conferences each have three ranked members.

Newcomers

AP Top 25: Arizona State (20), Oklahoma State (21), Wake Forest (22), SMU (24).

Coaches Poll: Michigan State (23), Memphis (24), Oklahoma State (25).

Drop outs

AP Top 25: Cal, USC, Michigan State

Coaches Poll: Cal, Kansas State, USC.