College football rankings: Week 7 Top 25 – Clemson, Alabama roll; Georgia, UNC stumble

Week 7 featured one of the biggest matchups of the season as No. 2 Alabama hosted No. 3 Georgia. How will the latest college football rankings be affected by this top five showdown?

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a college football week begin on a Wednesday and that’s mostly because MACtion has yet to begin. We got our first taste of action this past Wednesday and it actually featured a ranked Louisiana team.

And much like the theme of the 2020 season, an upset took place. Coastal Carolina toppled the Ragin’ Cajuns and that should be enough to knock them from the AP Top 25.

The exciting action carried over into Friday as SMU traveled to Tulane and BYU made the trip to Houston. Both ranked teams pulled off road wins and should be moving up in the Group of Five race for a New Year’s Six berth. Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that BYU’s Zach Wilson is a legit Heisman contender. The kid threw for 400 yards and four scores on the road.

Clemson kicked off Saturday with an absolute thrashing of Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets have been better this season under Geoff Collins, but they didn’t stand a chance against Trevor Lawrence and Co. as the nation’s No. 1 team won 73-7.

In that early afternoon slate, we did see some upsets of SEC squads as Auburn was shocked on the road against South Carolina and then Tennessee was mopped at home by Kentucky. It seems like the middle of the SEC is as big of a mess as the entire Big 12.

Notre Dame also escaped an upset with an ugly win over Louisville, 12-7. These Irish cannot be the nation’s fourth-best team right now, right?

In the late-afternoon, UCF fell via upset to Memphis and Texas A&M held off Mississippi State but the real letdown of the slate was the postponement of LSU vs. Florida due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Everyone was looking forward to the evening slate as No. 2 Alabama hosted No. 3 Georgia and it was tightly-contested just like everyone expected. Georgia held a surprising halftime lead before Mac Jones and the Crimson Tide exploded in the third quarter to mount a 10-point lead before slamming the door for good.

The other “big” game of the night was North Carolina and Florida State. No one expected the Seminoles to put up much of a fight, but they pulled off a massive upset and the Tar Heels might be on the outside of the playoff race for the remainder of the year.

What might the AP Top 25 look like heading into Sunday?

Week 7 AP Top 25 projections

1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Notre Dame
4. Ohio State
5. Oklahoma State
6. Cincinnati
7. Penn State
8. Florida
9. Texas A&M
10. Georgia
11. North Carolina
12. Oregon
13. Miami
14. BYU
15. Wisconsin
16. SMU
17. Michigan
18. Iowa State
19. Virginia Tech
20. Kansas State
21. Marshall
22. Oklahoma
23. Minnesota
24. Coastal Carolina
25. Memphis

There weren’t a ton of wild upsets this week, but the SEC got a bit of a shakeup and the ACC, too, taught us a lot. Clemson is looking almost untouchable this season, but that No. 1 ranking might be in jeopardy still.

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