The top 5 in the AP Poll finally looks right entering Week 5

Sunday's AP Poll settled on a top five of Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami and Ohio State. After a month of voters clinging to results that didn't hold up, this is the first version of the top five that actually matches what happened on the field.

Why the AP Top 5 looks the way it should

Texas at No. 1 isn't in question. The Longhorns are 4-0, with a signature win over Ohio State in Week 2, when quarterback Arch Manning erased a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter. Georgia backs up the No. 2 spot after beating Oklahoma 41-13, and Notre Dame has stayed unbeaten behind wins that include a 49-10 blowout over Purdue. Miami climbed to No. 4 after taking care of business over Central Michigan, 52-3. Miami has looked the part of a top-five team every week without the signature win the other three already have.

Ohio State rounding out the top five at No. 5 is where this week's poll finally gets something right that it had been getting wrong. The Buckeyes' only loss came against Texas, and it wasn't a competitive loss; it was more of a collapse. Losing a shootout like that to the team that's now No. 1 in the country is about as good as it gets when it comes to "quality" losses in this sport. Ohio State then backed it up with a 42-19 win over Illinois and a 59-3 win over Kent State. 

Indiana and Ole Miss are the two teams that fell out of the top five this week, and both moves are correct. Ole Miss got blown out 52-28 by Florida and dropped from No. 4 to No. 9, which isn't much of a debate. A loss like that should remove a team from the top-five conversation immediately. 

Indiana's case is softer. The Hoosiers are still undefeated at 4-0 and only fell one spot, from No. 5 to No. 6, after needing a late push to beat Northwestern 29-23. That's not a bad loss because there wasn't one, but it's also not the kind of result that should keep a team ahead of Ohio State, whose loss is to Texas. 

None of this means the top five is settled for the season. Both Ohio State and Georgia have a stacked Big Ten and SEC schedule ahead of them that could reshuffle polls in November. But entering Week 5, the AP top five reflects what teams have actually done rather than what they were expected to do.