College Football Rankings: Projected Top 10 after slew of upsets

College football saw three top-10 teams fall in the mid-afternoon slate in Week 7. Here is a projected Top 10 after Georgia, Washington and Penn State fell.

Now that we are firmly in the second half of the 2018 college football season, we’re starting to get into conference play. That means many familiar foes will be meeting on the gridiron. This means there is a greater chance of teams getting upset.

We still have a good bit of Week 7’s slate left to be decided, but so far, three top-10 teams fell on Saturday afternoon. No. 2 Georgia struggled mightily against No. 13 LSU down in Baton Rouge. No. 7 Washington fell for the second time this season, as they lost on the road to the Pac-12 North rival No. 17 Oregon. No. 8 Penn State lost at home for the second time this year to a division rival, this time to unranked Michigan State.

Here is what a projected Top 10 could look like after seeing Georgia, Washington and Penn State all taking a loss on Saturday afternoon.

Projected Top 10 entering Week 8

1. Alabama Crimson Tide (6-0)*
2. Ohio State Buckeyes (7-0)
3. Clemson Tigers (6-0)
4. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (7-0)
5. West Virginia Mountaineers (5-0)*
6. LSU Tigers (6-1)
7. Georgia Bulldogs (6-1)
8. Texas Longhorns (6-1)
9. UCF Knights (6-0)
10. Michigan Wolverines (5-1)*

Alabama retains the No. 1 spot even though they are still playing unranked Missouri in Tuscaloosa. Should the Crimson Tide lose, which they probably won’t, they would be the highest ranked one-loss team in the nation, ahead of both Georgia and LSU.

Ohio State moves up to No. 2 after Georgia’s loss to LSU. The Buckeyes won comfortably at home over Minnesota. Clemson was idle this week, but moves up to No. 3 from No. 4 after Georgia’s first loss of the season.

Notre Dame got the fourth-quarter touchdown it needed to escape a potentially embarrassing home loss to Pittsburgh. The Fighting Irish improve to 7-0 and would be No. 4 entering Week 8.

West Virginia is trailing unranked in Ames. Should the Mountaineers fall, they will plummet out of the top-10 and probably to somewhere in the mid-teens. If they overtake the Cyclones and win, they’ll move into No. 5.

LSU moves up from No. 13 to No. 6 this week as the best one-loss team in the country after handling Georgia, who would only fall to No. 7 entering Week 8 after losing to a top-15 on the road in Week 7.

Texas holds off Baylor to improve to 6-1 on the year. The Longhorns would go up a spot from No. 9 to No. 8 after both Washington and Penn State fell to Oregon and Michigan State, respectively.

Barely getting by Memphis is undefeated UCF. Though a Group of 5 team, they move up No. 9 from No. 10 as the favorite to get back to the New Year’s Six bowl out of the AAC. Should Michigan beat No. 15 Wisconsin at home, the Wolverines could leapfrog an idle Oklahoma from No. 12 to No. 10.

However if they fall, we could be looking at either Oklahoma, Florida, Miami or Oregon getting in at No. 10. The Ducks beat the best opponent of the bunch in Washington this weekend, but climbing up to No. 10 from No. 17 might be too big of a climb for them to do in one week.

It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of this week’s slate pans out. All we know is that at least three top-10 teams lost and the Top 10 will look completely different heading into next week’s slate of games.