College football rankings 2021: Projected Week 6 AP Top 25 after Notre Dame, Oregon lose, Alabama and Georgia dominate

Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 5: No. 18-17

18. Ole Miss Rebels

Losing by 21 points to Alabama isn’t a good look, particularly when the game was never that close to begin with. For all the smoke that was blown over Lane Kiffin and what the Rebels offense could possibly do against the Crimson Tide, they delivered a dud. Ole Miss got bullied in the trenches on both sides of the ball and the outcome reflected every bit of that.

There’s still reason to believe in the Rebels as a clear top-20 team. Matt Corral is the goods and, outside of a strip-sack, he played a pretty nice game given the circumstances. The truth of the matter, though, is that Ole Miss might still be another year away from truly contending with the elites under Kiffin, if not a little further out than that.

17. NC State Wolfpack

On the surface, winning in Raleigh by seven points (34-27) over a Louisiana Tech team that is average at best isn’t all the impressive for NC State. However, when you consider what a massive letdown spot this was for the Wolfpack on the heels of knocking off Clemson last week, it becomes much more admirable that they survived.

Truth be told, the game wasn’t as close as the final score might say as NC State was up by two touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter and weren’t in dire straits at any point in the game. With that said, this is clearly a well-coached and tough team that has enough offensive juice and a strong defensive core to compete for an ACC Championship.