College football power rankings: Predicting the AP Top 25 after Week 5

Racing out to a 31-3 into the third quarter, it looked like Michigan State would finally finish with a comfortable win, but fans should know better. The Spartans like to play close contests — whether Mark Dantonio admits it or not — and they allowed 17 consecutive points to end the game. The Spartans finished with a 31-20 win, their second straight. It wasn’t convincing enough to move them into the top 20.

Oregon rebounded from a tough Week 5 loss against Stanford at home to beat No. 24 California in another ranked battle. The Ducks, led by Heisman candidate Justin Herbert, shook off that overtime loss as the offense looked locked in in some late-night Pac-12 action. Mario Cristobal knows how to keep his kids focused and the Ducks look like serious conference title contenders, but they’ll need to likely win out.

The Longhorns raced out to a 19-0 lead in the first half and it looked like they would just blow the doors off a struggling Kansas State team, but that wasn’t quite the case. Sam Ehlinger had a strong game, but the rest of the offense remained quiet and the defense gave up some big scores in the second half. Looking dominant against USC and TCU, this one caused some head-scratching.

Kentucky is now 5-0 and 3-0 in SEC play. No, that is not a typo, Mark Stoops has the Wildcats playing some incredible football right now and they beat South Carolina by two touchdowns in Week 5. The Gamecocks were expected to be dark-horse contenders at the start of the year, but Kentucky has all the mojo in the SEC right now and they’re mowing down opponents left and right. Expect another boost in the polls.

Fresh off a win over Iowa in Iowa City, the Wisconsin Badgers got a bye, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Badgers lost to BYU just a couple of weeks ago and this is a good opportunity for Paul Chryst to regroup. Wisconsin is still a top Big Ten contender, but not yet top-10 worthy.