Week 2 of the college football season provided a number of close games and specifically, one or two results that pushed the line of nearly being upsets. But with the exception of No. 11 Tennessee and No. 15 Kansas State, the top 25 teams mostly got the job done this week — even if it wasn’t always pretty.
So let’s dive in and breakdown the projected top 25 rankings after the third week of college football action. There’s no better place to start than with the top four teams in the country: Georgia (24-14 win over South Carolina), Michigan (31-6 win vs. Bowling Green), Florida State (31-29 win over Boston College) and finally Texas (31-10 win over Wyoming).
It’s unlikely any of the top four spots change, even with No. 6 Ohio State completely rolling past Western Kentucky 63-10 and No. 7 Penn State defeating Illinois 30-13.
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Let’s kick things off with the projected top 10 after Week 3:
- 1. Georgia (3-0)
- 2. Michigan (3-0)
- 3. Florida State (3-0)
- 4. Texas (3-0)
- 5. USC (3-0)
- 6. Ohio State (3-0)
- 7. Penn State (3-0)
- 8. Washington (3-0)
- 9. Notre Dame (4-0)
- 10......
Here’s where things get a bit interesting. Nick Saban and Alabama were expected to go into South Florida and roll right past USF, but proceeded to win 17-3 thanks to two second-half touchdowns. Their offense looked completely non-existent at times, and I’m not sure there’s a world where it makes sense to keep them at No. 10
Going one step further, No. 11 Tennessee lost to Florida 29-16 while No. 15 Kansas State fell to Missouri 30-27.
Time to breakout the remainder of the list here, going back to No. 10 and evaluating how that’ll look post-Alabama’s ugly win.
- 10. Utah (3-0)
- 11. Oregon (3-0)
- 12. LSU (2-1)
- 13. Alabama (2-1)
- 14. Tennessee (2-1)
- 15. Oregon State (3-0)
- 16. Ole Miss (3-0)
- 17. Oklahoma (3-0)
- 18. Colorado (3-0)
- 19. North Carolina (3-0)
- 20. Kansas State (2-1)
- 21. Duke (3-0)
- 22. Miami (FL) (3-0)
- 23. Washington State (3-0)
- 24. UCLA (3-0)
- 25. Iowa (3-0)
A few things to note:
Dropping Kansas State from No. 15 to No. 20 is a bit of a fall, but evaluating what the teams that jumped them did either this week or in previous wins to remain undefeated was too much to overlook.
Clemson, Kansas and TCU all made a strong case to push their way back into the top 25, but it didn’t make sense this week. The same can be said about Florida after its impressive win over Tennessee, but they should be right in the mix with those three teams on the outside waiting to jump in.
