BATON ROUGE — After finishing the season with a 28-14 come-from-behind victory over the 15th-ranked Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the LSU football team finished the season ranked No. 22 in the final Associated Press Top 25 released after Wednesday’s National Championship game.
The Tigers (8-4), behind first-year head coach Nick Saban, improved from a 3-8 season in 1999 to earn a bowl bid for the first time since 1997.
With the Peach Bowl victory, the Tigers have won four consecutive bowl games dating back to a 45-26 Independence Bowl victory over Saban’s Michigan State team.
The 2000 squad became the first at LSU to finish in the AP Top 25 since the 1997 team finished 13th. The final Top 25 ranking is only LSU’s third over the past 12 seasons.
Georgia Tech (9-3) dropped only two spots to 17th in the final poll after giving up 25 unanswered points in the second half of the Peach Bowl loss.
After posting a 4-5 bowl record, six Southeastern Conference teams finished in the AP top 26, yet none ranked higher than 10th: Florida (No. 10), Auburn (No. 18), South Carolina (No. 19), Georgia (No. 20), LSU (No. 22), Mississippi State (No. 24) and Tennessee (No. 26).
Just as it wasn’t ranked during the entire 2000 season, the Tigers were not ranked in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ Poll, only receiving 84 votes.
However, other 8-4 teams which were ranked in the final coaches’ poll included: Purdue (which actually moved up one spot to 13th after a 34-24 loss to Washington in the Rose Bowl), Georgia (which moved up seven spots to No. 17 after a victory over unranked Virginia in the Oahu Bowl), Mississippi State at No. 22 and Tennessee at No. 25 (both of which LSU defeated in overtime in the regular season).
Wisconsin and Auburn also finished 20th and 24th, respectively, after posting 9-4 records.
The USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ Poll is voted on by 59 head coaches at Division I-A institutions who are members of the American Football Coaches Association. USA TODAY does not determine the rankings.