Tomorrow's Top 25: Michigan, A&M tumble
Each Saturday night, the Eye on College Football takes our best guess at what we’ll see from the new Associated Press Top 25 on Sunday.
Here’s where the poll stood entering this weekend, and below is our prediction for where it’ll stand afterwards. Teams marked with an asterisk are still playing or have yet to play. The projection assumes all Vegas favorites win. Post updates throughout the evening as results become final.
Enjoy:
1. Ohio State* (last week: 1). Urban Meyer’s team hosts Penn State at the Horseshoe on Saturday night, and is off to a promising first-half start.
2. Baylor (2). West Virginia’s defense looked extremely good the first few weeks of the season. It did not look good in Waco. But then again, whose does?
3. TCU (3). Even after the Frogs pulled away for a convincing win in Ames, consider this ranking very temporary — with last week’s race for No. 3 basically a dead heat, whichever of the Frogs and Utes looks more impressive Saturday night will likely claim the third spot this week.
4. Utah* (4). Kyle Whittingham’s team faces an Arizona State team looking for its second big Pac-12 South road upset in the late window.
5. Clemson (5). Even Boston College’s stout defense had problems with Deshaun Watson, and the Tigers cruised to another ACC victory. Will anything prevent the undefeated-vs-undefeated blockbuster with Florida State?
6. LSU (6). Leonard Fournette finished with a “quiet” 182 yards, but an explosive first half from Brandon Harris and some patented Les Miles trickery in the second got the Tigers across the finish line. It might not be enough for a jump, but it should be enough to prevent a slip.
7. Michigan State (7). It took arguably the most miraculous finish seen in college football since the Prayer in Jordan-Hare, but the Spartans got the win in Ann Arbor and are 7-0 with a signature road victory. Is it enough to take a step back up the polls after their prolonged slide to No. 7? With Clemson winning convincingly and LSU taking out another top-10 team, the guess here is not quite.
8. Florida State (11). Finally, the Seminoles whipped a decent opponent in Doak Campbell the way you’d expect them to whip an opponent in Doak Campbell. They’re a 6-0 defending ACC champion on a collision course with Clemson, and voters may be ready to put them back with the lead unbeaten pack.
9 Alabama (10). Yeah, the Tide went to College Station and blitzed Texas A&M. But it’s only fair to note that while they added a high-quality win, the Tide’s lone loss looks more inexplicable by the week.
10. Stanford (15). Speaking of inexplicable losses, after the Cardinal buried UCLA last Thursday, is there a stranger-looking score in the FBS this season than Northwestern 16, Stanford 6?
11. Iowa (17). Don’t look now, but the Hawkeyes are 7-0 after destroying Northwestern (in Evanston) and their remaining opponents are Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue and Nebraska. Is 11-1 the worst-case scenario?
12. Notre Dame* (14). The Irish are locked in a tight, tense one vs. USC in the second half.
13. Oklahoma State (16). The Cowboys enjoyed a bye week, but take advantage of some losses in front of them (and the failures of some teams behind them) to make a potential three-spot jump anyway.
14. Florida (8). Even without Will Grier, the Gators showed tremendous fight in Death Valley and might not even slip this far. But their signature win over Ole Miss does look a little bit less signature all of a sudden.
15. Oklahoma (19). Take it from Gary Patterson after TCU’s escape job last week: utterly crushing Kansas State in Manhattan is a heck of an accomplishment. Is there anyone in college football better at picking up his team after a loss than Bob Stoops? (We know, Sooners fans, you’d rather not have to deal with the loss in the first place, but …)
16. Texas A&M (9). Well, it wasn’t 59-0. And without three pick-sixes, it’s even closer than 41-23. But it was still tough to come away from Saturday’s meeting without the feeling Alabama was simply on a different level from the Aggies.
17. Memphis (NR). From unranked to 17th is an enormous leap for any team, much less a team from outside the Power Five. But the Tigers didn’t just beat Ole Miss — they were comprehensively the better team over the game’s final three quarters. At 6-0 and without an abundance of better candidates in this region of the polls, why not Memphis at 17?
18. Toledo (22). The Rockets blasted Eastern Michigan, which was nice … and would have been nicer if it had been almost anyone other than Eastern Michigan. The overall resume might still not quite be top-20 worthy, but as with the teams immediately ahead and behind them, not having a loss (and already drawing the pollsters’ attention) has its benefits.
19. Houston (24). Enjoy Tom Herman while you’ve got him, Cougars. Road beatdowns to wedge your way into the top-20 are too fun to worry about the future.
20. Cal (23). The Bears had the week off. If voters pay more attention to the Bears’ list of victories — Texas, Washington, a resurgent Washington State — than their lack of action this week, they could stay ahead of the Cougars, or move past the Rockets.
21. Duke (25).
22. Michigan (12)
23. Ole Miss (13)
24. Temple* (NR)
25. Mississippi State (NR)
Dropped out of projected rankings: UCLA, Northwestern, Boise State
Also under consideration: UCLA, Georgia, Arizona State*, USC*
No, Michigan fan, we couldn’t believe it either. (USATSI)This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
