Strictly by the numbers, this was a relatively calm week of college football. Just three top-25 teams lost on Saturday compared to eight the week before, and only one of those games was an actual upset. But the ranked squads that did lose had their brakes beat off.
No. 7 Alabama demolished No. 16 Mississippi State 56-23 to score their 17th consecutive win in the series. The Crimson Tide were favored, but they left nothing to chance in a statement victory to the rest of the conference and the country.
No. 25 Missouri heard all the noise about how it didn’t belong in the AP Poll and took its anger out on No. 8 Florida in a 45-17 win. The final score almost doesn’t do justice just how thoroughly the Tigers mauled the Gators.
No. 5 Ohio State did not run No. 14 Iowa out of its building in a 31-14 win like Alabama and Missouri did. But the Buckeyes are playing like a well-oiled machine, led by the new Heisman Trophy favorite in Jeremiah Smith, who had another 200-yard receiving game.
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The results of the first five weeks of the season have created quite the logjam for AP Voters trying to take head-to-head results into account. After its lopsided loss, Florida will almost certainly be ranked below an Ole Miss team it beat already. And Missouri should shoot up above a Mississippi State team it lost to last week. There’s already some evidence of that inconsistency in the case of Oregon and Oklahoma State. The Ducks lost to the Cowboys in Week 2, but they’re ranked ahead of them anyway.
There are quite a few teams that were receiving votes last week that have a strong case to crack the top 25. Pitt is now 5-0 after it beat Virginia Tech in a thriller. Wake Forest improved to 4-1 with a 57-3 win against Stanford. Wisconsin is also 4-1 after a 31-3 victory against Michigan State. And Nebraska is still undefeated after it executed an epic comeback to defeat Maryland 48-23. But with no teams near the bottom of the rankings taking a loss, will there be room for a newcomer this week?
The next set of rankings will be released on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET. Here’s how Athlon Sports projects the AP Top 25 will look after Week 5.
Graphic created with ChatGPT
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