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. 12-11

12. Michigan State Spartans

Whenever you have a Big Ten team with a reputation similar to Michigan State’s, you always have to worry about a matchup with a team like Western Kentucky, one of the fastest-paced teams in college football that wants to keep pushing it to the metal every time they have the ball. But it’s a testament to Mel Tucker, Payton Thorne and Kenneth Walker III that Sparty welcomed the Hilltoppers to East Lansing and were unconcerned by it.

Michigan State hung 45 points on their opponents by the end of the third quarter, showing that this isn’t the typical Big Ten football that you might be thinking it is. The Spartans have multiple ways to score and are doing so in an impressive manner. Though their defense did give up a bit to the Hilltoppers, this is a dark horse to win the conference, without question.

11. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Outside of getting played closely by Buffalo, it’s been a show of force from Coastal Carolina all season long. Jamey Chadwell is seemingly out to prove that the Chanticleers were far more than a one-year wonder as they aren’t just winning but are hanging big numbers on everyone they play and their defense is delivering an equally impressive effort as well.

On Saturday, it was UL Monroe — an admittedly quite bad team — that felt the brunt of the blow from the Chants as they protected the teal turf in resounding fashion with a 59-6 win. Grayson McCall has taken steps forward from his phenomenal redshirt freshman season and this team is going to be heard from as a Group of 5 spoiler if they keep this up.