College football rankings 2021: Projected Week 13 AP Top 25 after Oregon gets steamrolled, Alabama survives and Ohio State shines
Predicting the AP Top 25 college football rankings after a wild Week 12 in which Ohio State made a massive statement, Alabama survived and much more.
Saturday in Week 12 of college football was always going to be a huge day throughout the country with games like Ohio State-Michigan State, Oregon-Utah, Alabama-Arkansas and many others on the docket that could have serious implications for the AP Top 25, College Football Playoff and any other rankings you could potentially be looking at.
The calamity of this season continued and the chaos of rivalry week has the stage set absolutely perfectly for it moving forward. But before then, we have to take stock of the rankings and how the vastly different results from the marquee games have shaped the landscape of the sport.
With that, let’s dive into the projected AP Top 25 college football rankings for Week 13.
Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 12: No. 25-21
25. Mississippi State Bulldogs
Much like a few other SEC counterparts that we’ll hear from in these rankings, there wasn’t much doubt as to whether or not Mississippi State was going to win. The question was by how much against Tennessee State. Ultimately, the Bulldogs secured a comfy 55-10 win and move on into the Egg Bowl riding a bit of momentum.
24. Clemson Tigers
Considering the lumps both on the field and in the media that Clemson has taken this season, it’s pretty impressive on their part that the Tigers have weathered the storm to some degree and are now sitting at 8-3 overall this season after welcoming a top-10 team in Wake Forest to Death Valley and wholly taking care of business with a monster performance overall, winning 48-27.
23. NC State Wolfpack
Despite a curious point spread to enter the game, NC State took care of business pretty easily at home on Saturday against Syracuse. The Wolfpack stay a spot ahead of Clemson in the rankings thanks to their head-to-head win and they’re praying for a Wake Forest loss and win over North Carolina next week to get into the ACC Championship Game.
22. San Diego State Aztecs
If you’ve seen one San Diego State game this season, you’ve seen them all and such was the case on Friday night in a 28-20 win over UNLV. The Aztecs are limited offensively but thrive with terrific defense and special teams. Their upside is limited both overall and in the rankings but they are a tough team to get ahead of.
21. Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns
This could’ve been a tough game for the Ragin’ Cajuns, at least on paper, as they hit the road to face Liberty. Instead, Billy Napier continued to submit his résumé for much bigger jobs moving forward as Louisiana left no doubt in a huge road game to come away with a monster win.