Tomorrow's Top 25: Clemson a top-5 team?

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). With J.T. Barrett making his first start of the season, the Buckeyes are look to hold on to the No. 1 ranking at Rutgers.

2. Baylor (2). The Bears’ streak of 50-point games was snapped with a mere 47-point showing at Iowa State, good enough for only an 18-point win at Ames. Everything would be a-OK in Waco … if not for the sudden uncertainty surrounding Seth Russell.

3. Utah* (3). Kyle Whittingham’s team is the rare No. 3 team to be a Vegas underdog to a team not even in the AP Top 25. How will they fare at USC?

4. Clemson (6). You hand Miami its worst loss in school history and basically hang a “Fired Coach Walking” sign on poor Al Golden’s slumped shoulders, you’re getting a bump. Is anyone in the country playing as well as Dabo Swinney’s team right now?

5. TCU (4). With West Virginia coming to town this Thursday, the Horned Frogs had the week off. It might cost them a spot or two in the polls.

6. LSU* (5). The Tigers sputtered for much of the first half vs. Western Kentucky in muddy, rain-soaked Baton Rouge.

7. Michigan State (7). Well, that was different, Sparty; after a season spent mostly taking big early leads and giving huge chunks of them back, against Indiana Michigan State toiled for three-plus quarters before exploding at game’s end. It was a more impressive final margin than usual for the Spartans, but after leading just 28-26 in the second half, it might not be enough to regain some of their previous poll positioning.

8. Alabama (8). Voters once again opted for the once-beaten Tide over the undefeated Seminoles last week. After a relative squeaker for Alabama over Tennessee, is the door open for Florida State to move into the “lead pack” with their unbeaten Power Five brethren? Maybe … if not for a reasonably large gap in the polling between the teams. The Tide should hold on to No. 8.

9. Florida State* (9). Jimbo Fisher’s team is up by six on Georgia Tech at the start of the second half.

10. Stanford* (10). The Cardinal’s destruction of UCLA looks even nicer after the Bruins put a beating of their own on Cal on Thursday. They’ll look to burnish their resume themselves against Washington in late-night action.

11. Notre Dame (11). Speaking of resume improvement, losing on a missed two-point conversion at Clemson looks like just about as excusable loss as losses get these days. The Irish had a bye ahead of next week’s showdown with undefeated Temple.

12. Iowa (12). Hey, another team that took the week off. But before you ignorantly taunt the Hawkeyes’ schedule, those wins over Pitt, Wisconsin and Northwestern don’t look too shabby, do they?

13. Florida (13). Yep, this is a third straight team with a bye. If the Gators can put theirs to use with a win vs. Georgia in next week’s Cocktail Party, they’ll all but wrap up the SEC East.

14. Oklahoma State (14). Another member of the Iowa and Florida State “undefeated Power Five team but behind one-loss teams” club, the Cowboys blew away Kansas the way top-15 teams ought to blow away Kansas. But when your best win is still at West Virginia, poll momentum may be hard to come by.

15. Memphis (18). The Tigers’ defense still ain’t great. But Paxton Lynch and the offense are one of the best stories of the college football season, and between thumping Tulsa at Tulsa on a short week (in more emphatic fashion than Oklahoma did in Norman, for what it’s worth) and the building “Year of the AAC” narrative, they may have a jump of a few spots coming.

16. Oklahoma (17)

17. Michigan (15)

18. Houston (21)

19. Toledo (19)

20. Temple (22)

21. Duke (23)

22. Ole Miss* (24)

23. Pitt (25)

24. UCLA (NR)

25. Texas A&M* (15)

Dropped out of projected rankings: Cal

Also under consideration: Mississippi State, BYU, North Carolina

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