LSU defensive end Sam Montgomery gestures to the crowd Saturday at Cowboys Stadium. Photo by Matthew Emmons-US PRESSWIRE

I thought it was an easy call to elevate LSU to No. 1 on this week’s AP ballot.

The Tigers, with their 40-27 victory over Oregon, have the best victory of this week-old season — and certainly the best victory among the nation’s perceived elite teams.

Only 16 of the other 59 AP voters agreed with me; Oklahoma is still No. 1, receiving 32 first-place votes.

I consider my ballot to be “fluid” from week to week. Teams don’t get landlocked into a certain place, unable to jump another team that keeps on winning.

That’s why I moved LSU up from No. 4, and Boise State from No. 5 to No. 2 after beating Georgia.

As soon as Oklahoma and Alabama, for example, start posting bigger victories — and that could happen soon enough — then I’ll re-evaluate the entire body of work.

I went back and forth between putting Arizona State in the Top 25, but a win over lower-division UC-Davis didn’t provide enough evidence to jump the Devils into my rankings. A win over Missouri this Friday would do just that, in a significant way.

(Related: One AP voter still likes the Arizona Wildcats)

Here are my first week rankings:

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The Arizona Wildcats received five points in this week’s AP poll, all those coming courtesy of Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He ranks Arizona at 21, but does not include Arizona State on his ballot.

Fittipaldo also was the only one of the 60 voters who ranked UA in the preseason poll.

Arizona’s Thursday night opponent, Oklahoma State, is ranked ninth.

Arizona State remained on the fringe of the poll, first among others receiving votes. USC, after its call against Minnesota, winning 19-17, dropped out of the poll after being ranked No. 23.

Here’s the full AP poll and the USA Today coaches poll, in which Arizona receives 28 points. The coaches poll does not reveal individual ballots, so we don’t know which coaches are giving the Cats some love.

Arizona hasn’t looked like a ranked team in the past two weeks, but not even consecutive losses to Stanford and USC has booted the Wildcats from the Top 25 polls.

Arizona landed at No. 23 in the AP media poll and the USA Today coaches poll.

The Wildcats are 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the Pac-10 following the 24-21 loss to the visiting Trojans on Saturday night.

This is Arizona’s 10th consecutive week in the AP poll, the fifth longest steak in school history.

Last week, Javier Morales of WildAboutAZCats.com — one of our partners in the TucsonCitizen.com Sports Network — broke down the longer AP streaks for us:

• 39 consecutive weeks: In the Desert Swarm era, from the start of the 1993 season to five weeks into 1995.
• 20: During the entire 1998 season (when the Cats finished 12-1 and ranked No. 4) and four weeks into 1999.
• 15: The entire 1975 season, from the preseason poll to the final poll, peaking at No. 11 after starting 8-1.
• 13: After starting 2-0 through the end of the 1986 season, the last for Larry Smith at Arizona.

Arizona inched higher in the AP poll released today, moving from No. 21 to 18 after its 48-7 victory over Washington State. The Wildcats are still 19th in the coaches poll.

This is UA’s highest ranking in the AP poll since the week of Aug. 29, 1999, when the Wildcats were 15th after beginning the season at No. 4 and getting wiped out at Penn State, 41-7.

Arizona is as high as No. 12 on two of the 60 AP ballots. John Hunt of the Oregonian newspaper and Steve Campbell of the Houston Chronicle each have the Wildcats at No. 12, ahead of every other Pac-10 team.

That doesn’t make complete sense to me, since Oregon, at 5-1 in league play, is still leading the conference by a half game over 4-1 Arizona. And the Ducks already have a win over USC in their pockets.

In any case, UA and UO can settle it on the field on Nov. 21 in Tucson.

(By the way, Ryan Finley of the Arizona Daily Star, who has the state’s lone AP vote this season, puts the Wildcats at No. 19.) You can see his full ballot, as well as everybody else’s, at pollspeak.com, a great place to kill a lot of time.

There are four Pac-10 teams in the AP Top 25 — No. 11 USC, No. 14 Oregon, Arizona and Stanford moved in this week at No. 25. Oregon State is No. 26, the leader in the “others receiving votes” category.