No more laughingstock: Rutgers ranked for first time since '76

No joke. Rutgers is ranked.

The Scarlet Knights, long a college football laughingstock, moved Sunday into the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since the final poll of the 1976 season.

No. 23 Rutgers (4-0), led by tailback Ray Rice, the fourth leading rusher in the nation, is off to its best start since 1980 after beating Howard 56-7 on Saturday.

The Scarlet Knights were one of three new teams at the bottom of the new media poll, which was mostly unchanged at the top.

Ohio State is still No. 1 with 59 of a possible 65 first-place votes. No. 2 Auburn, No. 3 Southern California and No. 4 West Virginia each received two first-place votes.

Auburn had 1,513 points and USC had 1,491. The Tigers lead over the Trojans grew nine points from last week.

No. 5 is Florida, followed by Michigan, Texas, Louisville, LSU and Georgia. The only change in the Top 10 was No. 9 LSU flip-flopping with No. 10 Georgia.

Throughout the 1990s, the Scarlet Knights were among the worst teams in Division I-A, routinely getting blown out by their Big East rivals.

Last year, in coach Greg Schiano's fifth season at the state university of New Jersey, Rutgers had it's first winning year since 1992. The Knights went 7-5 and played in the Insight Bowl, their first bowl game since 1978.

The Knights have benefited from an early weak schedule -- three I-A opponents with a combined 4-8 record and a I-AA team -- but of course it wasn't long ago Rutgers couldn't beat anybody.

The other new teams in the poll were No. 24 Georgia Tech, which has lost only to Notre Dame in it's opener, and No. 25 Missouri (4-0).

Missouri is ranked for the first time since the second week of the 2004 season.

Virginia Tech is No. 11 followed by Notre Dame, Iowa, Oregon and Tennessee. The next five were Oklahoma, TCU, Clemson, Florida State and California.

No. 20 is California with Nebraska No. 21 and Boise State at No. 22.