College football rankings 2022: Projected Week 3 AP Top 25 after Alabama survives, Notre Dame & Texas A&M fall
Projected college football rankings for the AP Top 25 in Week 3 after an upset-filled Saturday with Notre Dame, Texas A&M and more being upset.
If there was one complaint about the return of college football last week, it was the overall lack of upsets. Outside of Florida taking down Utah, there was not a ranked upset in the country in Week 1. So, naturally, the universe had to make up for that with an absolutely absurd Week 2 slate that saw one ranked team after another go down.
Notre Dame and Texas A&M, both ranked inside the top 10 of the latest AP Top 25 college football rankings, lost at home to Marshall and Appalachian State, respectively. Meanwhile, Wisconsin quietly also lost inside the confines of Camp Randall to Washington State in shocking fashion before Florida also went down to ranked Kentucky late in the night.
And if that weren’t enough, the day almost started with the biggest upset of them all as Texas nearly took down No. 1 Alabama but the Crimson Tide put together one final drive to score the game-winning field goal.
Will that be enough to hold on to the top spot in the rankings, though? Let’s see what the projected AP Top 25 college football rankings have to say about that.
Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 2: No. 25-21
25. Air Force Falcons
Understanding that the Falcons haven’t exactly played elite competition to this point, the fact of the matter is that Air Force has been as dominant through two weeks as you’d want a Group of 5 to be against Northern Iowa and Colorado, getting a 41-10 win over the Buffs on Saturday. This team is going to be a true problem and a contender to take the Mountain West this season.
24. Oregon Ducks
Truth be told, it was probably far too much of an overreaction to drop Oregon out of the rankings after the Ducks got walloped by Georgia in Week 1. Bo Nix and this team bounced back against inferior competition as they took down Eastern Washington pretty convincingly after jumping out to a big early lead. There’s a lot left to prove after how the season began, but Oregon certainly deserves a Top 25 spot.
23. Texas A&M Aggies
In the simplest terms, it’s time for Jimbo Fisher to give up whatever infatuation with Haynes King that he has. Texas A&M got knocked off at Kyle Field by App State. The Mountaineers are a good team, but are nowhere in the vicinity of the Aggies in terms of talent. Yet, the offense looked wholly anemic and hapless throughout the game. I’m keeping them in the Top 25, but just barely.
22. Pittsburgh Panthers
There’s no real shame in what we saw from Pitt on Saturday. Even with starting quarterback Kedon Slovis exiting the game early, the team still pushed a very good Tennessee team to the limit as the game went to overtime. They were overwhelmed in the extra frame finally but it was still a great overall showing that gave no reason to think that they are going anywhere as a true factor in the ACC.
21. Penn State Nittany Lions
After a thrilling win over Purdue last week, there weren’t many questions about Penn State this season as the Nittany Lions were coming into a spot where they have experience, have a ton of talent, and just need to get the ship righted after two down seasons. In taking care of business against Ohio on Saturday, they showed they are up to that task with a strong overall performance.