College football rankings

while the coaches poll is pretty fair, the AP poll is just mind boggling right now. how does a team (auburn) go from just receiving votes to 15th in the country after beating a very mediocre south carolina team in the last minutes of the game. im not sure if they AP realizes the rankings dont take into consideration what teams did last year, some people should just have their votes taken away. it just seems like teams like texas,florida,southern cal, west virginia and auburn all get more credit for beating the little sisters of the poor, in auburn's case BARELY beating 2 little sisters of the poor....then when they have to play good schools they get exposed for what they really are (mediocre at best)....notre dame is a top 10 team easily with out the turnovers, 2 tough losses and they arent in the rankings...however a team like usc gets beat miserably and stays in the rankings?