College football rankings 2022: Projected Week 9 AP Top 25 after Alabama rebounds, Clemson survives, UCLA & Ole Miss stumble

Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 8: No. 12-11

12. UCLA Bruins

For the two weeks prior to being off a week ago, it felt like UCLA was checking boxes to prove that they were a legitimate Top 10 team. They handled Washington on a Friday night in California and then dispatched Utah in the following game in a game that was one-sided for the most part in favor of the Bruins. Thus, it felt like Chip Kelly would have his team prepared to go on the road to Autzen Stadium and pass another test against Oregon.

Unfortunately for the Bruins faithful, that was not the case. UCLA looked completely outmatched on Saturday afternoon. Their offense was fine as Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zac Charbonnet put up good numbers, but they couldn’t do enough for a defense that simply had no answers for anything Oregon wanted to do. Now the question becomes if UCLA can fix things on that side of the ball or if those warts will pop up again to stifle their chances in the Pac-12 race.

11. Wake Forest Demon Deacons

It’s getting more and more difficult to find reasons to not believe in Wake Forest as an agent of chaos this season. They were extremely close to knocking off Clemson as they took the Tigers to double overtime and that remains their only loss on the season as they rolled over Boston College in Winston Salem, NC on Saturday with a 43-15 victory.

Sam Hartman is a true stud at the quarterback spot as he accounted for six touchdowns on the day against the Eagles and also moved into third all-time on the ACC career passing touchdowns leaderboard. This offense can put points up in bunches and, while the defense is flawed, it’s good enough to allow Hartman and the attack to win the Deacs plenty of games to this point and, by the looks of things, moving forward.