The Cougars did the hard thing Saturday. They fell behind, stayed calm, and beat UCF 27-17 at home to move to 4-1. The Associated Press voters responded Sunday by moving Houston down two places, from No. 20 to No. 22, with 279 points.

This is not a scandal. It is something more useful: a reminder of how a poll works. A ranking is a conversation among 60-odd voters who are mostly comparing résumés, not rewatching second halves. Houston's résumé has one loss on it, and a comeback, however satisfying, doesn't erase that line. Meanwhile, the teams around the Cougars kept winning, and a poll is a ladder. If the people above you keep climbing, you slide even while standing still.

The odd part is that the other major poll saw it differently. The Coaches Poll bumped Houston up one spot to No. 19. The coaches, who spend their weeks inside the film room, rewarded a team that trailed and won anyway. The writers and broadcasters in the AP voting room looked at the same Saturday and shrugged. Both views are defensible. Only one of them gets the Cougars a better seat this week.

The Big 12's new top dog

The league's flag now flies over Provo. BYU is 4-0 and climbed two spots to No. 8 with 1,144 points, the highest ranking of any Big 12 team and the only one inside the top 10. The Cougars from Utah get Iowa State on a Friday night (10:15 p.m. EDT, Oct. 9), which is the kind of game that looks like a trap and plays like a referendum.

Behind BYU, the conference is better stocked than the national conversation admits. Texas Tech is 5-0 and sits at No. 11 with 1,062 points, but it doesn't play this week and won't take the field again until Arizona State on Oct. 17. Utah is 4-0 at No. 12 and hosts Kansas on Saturday night. Oklahoma State, at 3-1, is No. 18 and plays UCF at noon EDT, which means the team Houston just beat is about to walk into another ranked opponent. Then comes Houston at No. 22. That is five Big 12 teams in the poll, with Arizona (19 points) lurking among the others receiving votes.

The rest of the neighborhood

At the top, nothing moved. Texas is 4-0 and No. 1 with 1,737 points and 61 first-place votes, and the Longhorns now face the Red River test at Oklahoma (3:30 p.m. EDT). Georgia is a clear No. 2 at 5-0 (1,647, six first-place votes) and goes to Tuscaloosa to play No. 6 Alabama, also 5-0, in a Saturday night game that will make one of them a very different team by Sunday. Notre Dame holds No. 3 at 5-0 and hosts Stanford. Miami (FL), 5-0, is No. 4 with two first-place votes, and doesn't play until Florida State on Oct. 17. Ohio State, 4-1, is No. 5 and hosts Maryland.

Indiana is No. 7 at 5-0 and has the most interesting trip of the weekend, at Nebraska at noon EDT, with one first-place vote to its name. Ole Miss, 3-1, is No. 9 and visits Vanderbilt. LSU, 4-1, is No. 10 and goes to Kentucky, which is among the others receiving votes with 160 points.

The back half of the poll is where the pressure builds. Oregon, 3-1, is No. 13 and hosts a UCLA team that is 4-0 and No. 21, a game that will sort out two ranked teams in one afternoon. Missouri is 4-1 at No. 14 and gets Texas A&M. Tennessee, 4-1, is No. 15 and visits Arkansas. Florida, 4-1, is No. 16 and hosts South Carolina. Mississippi State is No. 17 and doesn't play until it goes to LSU on Oct. 17. USC, 5-1, is No. 19 and takes the biggest trip of the week, to Penn State on a Saturday night. Iowa is 4-1 at No. 20 and visits Washington on a Friday night. Boise State, 4-1, is No. 23 and goes to Fresno State. SMU, 4-1, is No. 24 and waits for Virginia on Oct. 17. Pittsburgh closes the poll at No. 25, 5-0, hosting North Carolina.

What Saturday asks of Houston

All of which makes Saturday in Manhattan, Kansas, the real story (3:30 p.m. EDT, at Kansas State). The poll position Houston lost on Sunday is available again by Saturday evening, and the way to win it back is simple and unglamorous. A road win in the Big 12 does more for a ranking than any comeback at home.

That is what the 22 really says. It isn't a verdict on the UCF game. It is a request for the next one. Houston is 4-1, ranked in both polls, and sitting two games behind the conference's loudest story in Provo. There is plenty of season left to close that gap, and no poll can take away the fact that this team knows how to win from behind.