College football AP Top 25: Week 8 winners and losers
The college football season is headed into Week 8 and the AP Top 25 has been released. Which teams come away as the biggest winners and losers?
What a week. The first six weeks of the college football season were action-packed and intriguing, but Week 7 was by far and away the most surprising of the season.
We are officially past the midway point — or just on the mid-point for some teams who’ve already had byes — and the season is just starting to heat up. We thought we had our fair share of upsets through the first half of the season, and then Week 7 happened.
The noon slate set the tone for the day. Florida hit the road to take on upset-hungry Vanderbilt and outside of the battle on the field, both side’s coaches also went at it. Florida fell behind early but came back to avoid an epic upset. Ohio State and Minnesota, too, were in a fierce battle but the Buckeyes finally pulled away in the fourth after being on upset alert. Lastly, Tennessee upended Auburn on the road, shocking the nation.
In the next round of games, Notre Dame scored in the final six minutes to take the lead over Pitt, holding on in a game everyone expected the Irish to win easily. LSU pulled off the upset of No. 2 Georgia, Michigan State shocked No. 8 Penn State on the road and Oregon took down No. 7 Washington in overtime.
Iowa State knocked off No. 6 West Virginia in the night slate, marking the fourth top-10 team to lose on Saturday. Virginia also pulled off an upset, beating No. 16 Miami while Michigan demolished Wisconsin in Ann Arbor in a battle of top-15 teams.
Who are this week’s biggest winners and losers?
Winner: LSU Tigers (No. 13 up to No. 5)
Going into the week, the question about this one was how much would Georgia win by. The Tigers were coming off a tough loss in The Swamp against a suddenly-hot Florida team while Georgia had been demolishing just about everyone in its path.
Tiger fans were bracing themselves, hoping that a game in Baton Rouge would make a difference, and it did.
The LSU defense dominated Jake Fromm, forcing him into the worst game of his career as he completed just 16-of-24 passes for 209 yards and a touchdown with two picks. He wasn’t able to get anything going and there were some restless fans calling for Justin Fields.
Joe Burrow, on the other hand, had a strong game with 200 yards passing as well as 66 yards rushing and two touchdowns — including a 59-yard rush. He was the difference here, along with Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who rushed for over 140 yards, on the offensive side of the ball.
The Tigers dropped from No. 5 last week to 13th overall and bounced back with a win over the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs.