Georgia moved up one spot to No. 4 in The Associated Press poll Sunday, Oklahoma returned to the top 10 and North Texas, ranked for the first time since 1959, is among three Group of Five teams in the Top 25.
Ohio State, Indiana and Texas A&M were the top three teams for the fifth straight week. Georgia earned its highest ranking since the first week of September and Mississippi was back in the top five after spending three weeks there at midseason.
Oregon and Texas Tech were tied for No. 6, and Oklahoma rose three spots to No. 8 following its win at Alabama. The Sooners were last in the top 10, at No. 6, the second week of October.
Notre Dame remained No. 9 after a 22-point win at Pittsburgh and Alabama dropped six spots to No. 10 after the Sooners ended its eight-game win streak.
Ohio State, which rolled past UCLA to improve to 10-0 for the fourth time in seven seasons, received 57 of 66 first-place votes. Indiana, which beat Wisconsin to go 11-0 for the first time, got eight first-place votes. Texas A&M, whose comeback from a 27-point deficit to beat South Carolina was its largest ever, got one first-place vote, three less than last week.
Georgia's 35-10 win over Texas was its sixth straight and second over a top-10 opponent. Mississippi, which lost at Georgia a month ago, defeated Florida and is more than 100 points behind the Bulldogs at No. 5.
The Group of Five hadn't had three teams in the Top 25 since four appeared in last season's final poll.
The Sun Belt Conference's James Madison blew out Appalachian State and moved up three spots to No. 21. North Texas is next at No. 22. The Mean Green of the American Conference clobbered UAB 53-24 on the road and have matched their best start in program history.
The last time UNT was 9-1 was in 1959, when the team then known as the Eagles was ranked two straight weeks in November, reaching No. 16. That team lost to New Mexico State in the Sun Bowl to finish 9-2. This year's UNT team already is eligible for a second straight bowl game and is in the thick of the race for the Group of Five's automatic CFP bid.
— No. 22 North Texas' first appearance in the poll in 66 years ends the longest drought by a Bowl Subdivision team.
— No. 23 Missouri returned after a one-week absence following a win over Mississippi State in which Ahmad Hardy became the first player since 2022 to rush for 300 yards.
— No. 24 Tulane has won two straight since losing to UTSA and is ranked for the first time this season.
— No. 25 Houston, fifth among teams also receiving votes last week and idle, were ranked for one week in October.
Louisville (19), Cincinnati (22), Pittsburgh (23) and South Florida (25) dropped out.
— Voters did what the CFP selection committee did last week, jumping Miami over Georgia Tech to make the Hurricanes the highest-ranked Atlantic Coast Conference team. Miami easily beat North Carolina State and moved up two spots to No. 14. Georgia Tech, which needed a field goal in the final seconds to edge one-win Boston College, slipped a spot to No. 15.
— No. 13 Utah has outscored three opponents by a combined 153-49 since losing at BYU and has its highest ranking of the season.
— No. 17 Texas took the biggest plunge, dropping seven spots.
SEC (9): Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 17, 20, 23.
Big Ten (5): Nos. 1, 2, T-6, 16, 18.
Big 12 (4): Nos. T-6, 11, 13, 25.
ACC (3): Nos. 14, 15, 19.
American (2): Nos. 22, 24.
Sun Belt (1): No. 21.
Independent (1): No. 9.
No. 16 Southern California (8-2, 6-1 Big Ten, No. 17 CFP) at No. 6 Oregon (9-1, 6-1, No. 8 CFP): Winner strengthens its position for a CFP at-large bid and keeps alive slim hopes of sneaking into the Big Ten championship game.
No. 23 Missouri (7-3, 3-3 SEC) at No. 8 Oklahoma (8-2, 4-2, No. 11 CFP): Sooners did wonders for their playoff resume by knocking off Alabama on the road and now go for a fifth win over a Top 25 opponent.
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FILE - North Texas offensive lineman Tay Yanta II (70) and North Texas linebacker Shane Whitter (7) lead the team onto the field before an NCAA college football game against South Florida Oct. 10, 2025, in Denton, Texas. (AP Photo/Richard W. Rodriguez, File)
VIENNA (AP) — Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital with a drone early Tuesday as it kept hitting targets around the region, while the United States and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes in what U.S. President Donald Trump suggested was just the start of a relentless campaign that could last more than a month.
The attack from two drones on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire” and minor damage, according to Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound. It followed an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, which announced Tuesday it had been closed until further notice. The U.S. State Department also ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, as well as Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates as a precaution.
The expanding conflict has so far killed hundreds of people, the vast majority in Iran.
Across Iran’s capital, explosions rang out throughout the night into Tuesday, with aircraft heard overhead. It was not immediately clear what had been hit. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site had sustained “some recent damage,” though there was “no radiological consequence expected.” Natanz earlier came under attack by the U.S. in the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.
In Lebanon, Israel launched more strikes on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group. Explosions could be heard and smoke seen in a southern suburb of Beirut. Israel also said its soldiers were “operating in southern Lebanon.” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Lebanese army was evacuating some of its positions along the border.
The expansion of Iranian retaliation across the Gulf and the intensity of the Israeli and American attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the lack of any apparent exit plan portend a possibly prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences.
Iran has hit many countries deemed safe havens in the Mideast in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli strikes. Recent targets include two Amazon data centers in the UAE and a drone impact near another in Bahrain that caused damage, the company said Tuesday. Iran has also hit energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and attacked several ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, sending global oil and natural gas prices soaring.
“The Strait of Hormuz is closed," declared Iranian Brig. Gen. Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, threatening to set fire to any ships attempting to transit. “Don’t come to this region.”
The U.S. State Department urged U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to safety risks, as have many other countries, though with much of the airspace closed many remain stranded.
Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.” He later added that the U.S. had a “virtually unlimited supply” of munitions and pre-positioned “high grade weaponry.”
“Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies,” he wrote on social media.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said the U.S.-Israeli operation has killed at least 787 people. In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported airstrikes killed 13 Iranian troops in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah killed 52 people in Lebanon.
“Military escalation would force more families from their homes and hit civilians hard,” said Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization on Migration, calling for the international community to press for de-escalation. “Millions are already displaced in the region.”
The U.S. military has confirmed six deaths of American service members. All six were Army soldiers in a logistics unit in Kuwait, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Three people were killed in the UAE, and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the U.S. military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American fighter jets while Iran was attacking it with aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones. U.S. Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely.
Iranian state TV said strikes caused two explosions early Tuesday at a broadcasting facility in Tehran, but said no one was injured.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters that airstrikes targeted the Natanz nuclear enrichment site on Sunday.
“Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” he said.
Israel and the U.S. have not acknowledged strikes at the site, which the U.S. bombed in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Israel has said it is targeting the “leadership and nuclear infrastructure.”
Trump said the military campaign’s objectives are to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel on Monday.
Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June, though it has maintained its right to do so and says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained, however, that Iran was rebuilding “new sites, new places” underground for making atomic bombs. He offered no evidence to support his claim.
“We had to take the action now and we did,” Netanyahu told Fox News Channel’s Hannity.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed limited activity at two nuclear sites in Iran before the war. Analysts said Tehran was likely assessing damage from the 2025 U.S. strikes and possibly salvaging what remained.
The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, where the Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate.
At least 52 people have been killed and 154 wounded, Lebanese authorities said.
Israel hit Beirut with more airstrikes early Tuesday, saying it was targeting “Hezbollah command centers and weapons storage facilities.”
Hezbollah also said it launched drones targeting an Israeli air base. The Israeli military said it downed two drones.
An Iranian-linked militant in Iraq has also claimed strikes on U.S. military facilities there. The Israeli military said its troops operating in southern Lebanon were positioned at several points near the border in what it described as a “forward defense posture.”
The army said there were no plans to evacuate Israeli residents of border areas.
David Rising in Bangkok, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Hallie Golden in Seattle, and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami contributed to this report. Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece, and Magdy reported from Cairo.
Jewish men covered in prayer shawls pray in an underground parking garage as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A group of men inspects the ruins of a police station struck Monday amid the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, early Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
This image provided by U.S. Central Command shows a F-35C Lightning II preparing for launch on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in support of Operation Epic Fury on Monday, March 2, 2026. (U.S. Navy via AP)
Mourners take cover while air-raid sirens warn of incoming missiles launched by Iran toward Israel during the funeral of Sarah Elimelech and her daughter Ronit who were killed in an Iranian missile attack, in Beit Shemesh, Israel, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A worker instals a billboard on an overpass containing a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the ongoing joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Smoke engulfs a street after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohsen Ganji)
