While the college football rankings are not expected to see major upheaval after Week 9, there are plenty of changes coming after a week that featured five games between teams ranked in the AP Top 25 poll. Of those five matchups, none were more significant than Texas A&M’s win against LSU, which kept the Aggies in first place in the SEC standings and will likely propel them into the top 10 when the rankings are updated on Sunday.
The top of the rankings are likely to stay mostly static. Oregon was one of the only top teams to get through Week 9 without facing the real potential of an upset. Penn State, Ohio State and Texas all faced various levels of adversity in victory with the Nittany Lions and the Buckeyes getting late touchdowns to preserve their standing, while the Longhorns held off a late charge from Vanderbilt.
Further down the rankings, voters will have to start making some decisions about how long they are willing to put undefeated power conferences teams behind other teams with losses. BYU and Indiana both won by double-digit margins on Saturday to maintain their unbeaten start, and on Thursday, Pitt totally dismantled Syracuse to improve to 7-0. In last week’s balloting, there were six teams with losses ahead of BYU, seven ahead of Indiana and 12 teams with losses ahead of Pitt, including two-loss Ole Miss.
There will also be some split decisions regarding teams in the 20s after Illinois, Missouri, Navy and Vanderbilt all lost. Some voters will boot any team in that range that loses, while others have been more reluctant to keep teams on their ballot if the defeat came at the hands of a top-ranked team. All four lost to top-15 teams in Week 9.
Here’s how we project the new AP Top 25 to look on Sunday after Week…
..
