College football rankings 2022: Projected Week 5 AP Top 25 after Oklahoma upset, USC survives, Ohio State cruises

Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 4: No. 12-11

12. Penn State Nittany Lions

On the heels of their big win over Auburn a week ago, there were numerous people looking at Penn State after they moved into the Top 15 of the AP Top 25 college football rankings to see what they would do next. And early on, the returns were a bit troublesome as the Nittany Lions found themselves tied 14-14 late in the second quarter against a pretty bad Central Michigan squad.

The good news from James Franklin’s squad is that Sean Clifford turned up the juice thereafter, as did the Penn State defense, and they didn’t look back. At the end of the day, the Nittany Lions secured a big 33-14 victory as they now eye their return to Big Ten play next week with Northwestern coming to town before a bye and then a crucial trip to Ann Arbor.

11. Utah Utes

The more season that goes by, the stranger that the loss to Florida looks. But the way that Cam Rising and Utah have been playing to this point, the fact of the matter is that the Utes might’ve just been taken off guard by a talented Gators team in a climate that they weren’t totally prepared for. And they still almost won that game, lest we forget.

On Saturday night, Utah proved that they weren’t going to be remotely close to being threatened by Arizona State, even if the Sun Devils had turned the page on the Herm Edwards era. They jumped out to a small early lead and just really controlled every aspect of the contest to keep moving their way up the rankings.