Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 8: No. 14-13
14. Penn State Nittany Lions
After the way that Sean Clifford and Penn State performed a week ago against Michigan, I’ll admit freely that I was ready to think that Minnesota could come into Beaver Stadium – White Out game or not – and get the win. What I didn’t account for was Clifford rebounding in a massive way with a huge game overall while the defense put the clamps on the Golden Gophers from start to finish.
As far as bounce-back efforts go, it was a highly impressive one from James Franklin’s team. With that being said, the Nittany Lions were facing a backup quarterback who Minnesota, frankly, appeared afraid to let throw. There are still questions about Penn State, ones that will surely be answered when they match up against Ohio State in Happy Valley next week for one of the best game son the slate.
13. Ole Miss Rebels
Considering that Ole Miss was ranked No. 7 and hadn’t lost a game coming into Saturday but was still an underdog on the road against a two-loss LSU team, it stands to reason that there was a good deal of doubt about whether Lane Kiffin’s team was for real – meaning whether or not they were actually a Top 10 team in the country. We got the answer to that and it wasn’t one that the fans in Oxford enjoyed getting.
The Rebels moved the ball decently well on offense but simply couldn’t find enough behind Jaxson Dart in the passing game. More importantly, though, the defense – particularly as injuries started to pile up throughout the game – had no answer for Jayden Daniels and the Tigers offense. Perhaps playing the inept Texas A&M offense next week can help the defense get right, though, before facing Alabama.