College football rankings: Projected AP Top 25 after Alabama thumps LSU, Georgia rocked by Ole Miss in Week 11

We knew that the AP Top 25 college football rankings could see some major movement based on how a loaded Week 11 played out. But even then, I don't think we realized just how chaotic things could get. After we saw Alabama and Ole Miss lay the hammer down on LSU and Georgia, respectively, though, things are about to get hectic for these rankings and the College Football Playoff picture.

Oh wait, it wasn't just the SEC where things got crazy in Week 11. The Miami Hurricanes took their first loss of the season on the road at Georgia Tech, both Pitt and Iowa State lost for the second straight game after undefeated starts, and there were more close calls and tight games that made us think more than we thought.

It got hectic in Week 11 but, now that the dust has settled, let's check in with the projected AP Top 25 college football rankings.

No. 25-21

25. Missouri Tigers

I was going to try extremely hard to not have the Missouri Tigers inside the AP Top 25 projections because, well, I don’t think they deserve it and an ugly win over Oklahoma doesn’t make me feel any differently. However, with Pitt and Iowa State both taking another loss and dropping out, I’m really not left with much choice but to put Drink’s team in the mix. 

24. Tulane Green Wave

Don’t look now but Jon Sumrall has Tulane absolutely cooking right now. Sure, they played an awful Temple team this week — but any 52-6 win is the sign of a team that’s dominating its competition. The Green Wave have still not lost in AAC play or against non-Power 4 competition this season and have seemingly only been getting stronger. Tulane is officially a sleeper for the G5 representative in the CFP. 

23. South Carolina Gamecocks

My personal belief was that South Carolina should’ve been ranked a week ago after the way the Gamecocks thoroughly beat down Texas A&M. That didn’t happen but following that up with another dominant win over Vanderbilt should do the trick. Look, LaNoris Sellers and the offense aren’t the most trustworthy but the defense most definitely is. This team won’t have many chances to cause more chaos from here on out, but they’ve done plenty of that to this point. 

22. Louisville Cardinals

What a nice week for Louisville as the Cardinals got the week off to celebrate the big win over Clemson last week and they also get a slight bump in the rankings as well to help the cause moving forward. Louisville might be out of the ACC race with losses to SMU and Miami already but it’s still been an impressive encore for Jeff Brohm at his alma mater after making a run to the title game a year ago in the conference. 

21. LSU Tigers

Go ahead and kiss those Playoff chances goodbye, LSU. Playing in Death Valley against a pass defense that has been susceptible and with time to prepare to defend Jalen Milroe, Brian Kelly’s team laid a complete dud in a must-win matchup. Garrett Nussmeier had his issues, to be sure, but it feels as if he keeps being hung out to dry in a rough way that could ultimately come back to haunt the head coach not just this year but down the line as well. 

No. 20-16

20. Kansas State Wildcats

Kansas State has to be licking its wounds after a somewhat inexplicable loss to Houston last week, which the Wildcats got a bye to do so. Of the teams still in the mix for the conference title, though, K-State may have the most difficult remaining path as Arizona State, Cincinnati and Iowa State remain for Chris Klieman’s team, which could be daunting given how erratic the Wildcats have been this year. 

19. Colorado Buffaloes

Deion Sanders has Colorado haters in absolute shambles right now. This is no longer a team that is more of a sideshow than anything of substance, much like they were a year ago. Shedeur Sanders is playing like the best QB in the country, Travis Hunter is superhuman, and the defense has started to show some salt, particularly up front. With Iowa State losing again, the Buffs are now in line to head to Arlington for the Big 12 Championship Game and compete for a CFP berth. 

18. Washington State Cougars

Washington State was one of the big losers of the first CFP rankings. Coming in at No. 20 and without an official conference for the 2024 season, the Cougars were seemingly left with no path to make it into the 12-team field. That didn't deter John Mateer and Co. on Saturday night in Pullman, though, as the Cougars put it on a porous Utah State team. The Wazzu signal-caller accounted for five total touchdowns while leading his team to a 49-28 victory that never even felt close. They might not be anywhere near the CFP in the end but this is a damn fun football team.

17. Clemson Tigers

There have been few surer things in college football over the past decade-plus than Dabo Swinney’s Clemson teams responding after a loss. So it should be no surprise that the Tigers rebounded after last week’s loss to Louisville to handle Virginia Tech. While Cade Klubnik and the offense were a bit stop-and-go, the defense clamped up Kyron Drones and Co. for a 24-14 win that was far more one-sided than a low-scoring final would make you think. 

16. Army Black Knights

Bryson Daily returned for Army after a surprise injury kept him out of the Black Knights’ win over Air Force a week ago. He returned to have a big game on the ground, rushing for 153 yards and Army’s two scores in a shockingly low-scoring affair against North Texas. But Jeff Monken’s team remained perfect, moving to 9-0 on the season, and will now get a week off before the biggest game on their schedule, a huge showdown against Notre Dame. 

No. 15-11

15. Texas A&M Aggies

Texas A&M got an extra week to stew in an embarrassingly one-sided loss at South Carolina a week ago with Mike Elko’s group having a bye in Week 11. Next up, it’s a date with New Mexico State and then a visit to Auburn, neither of which look to daunting for the Aggies. However, this team’s CFP hopes and potentially the measure of the season’s quality all lie in the renewed rivalry matchup against Texas to end the regular season. 

14. Boise State Broncos

Yes, Boise State won another game and remains well in line to be the Group of 5 representative in the College Football Playoff. Having said that, I’m willing to push them down in the rankings a couple of spots after hosting a 3-7 Nevada team as more than three-touchdown favorites and finding themselves in a close game. Ashton Jeanty was great but Maddux Madsen turned back into a pumpkin. The Broncos will need to be better if they want to continue this season’s run to the 12-team Playoff. 

13. SMU Mustangs

After a dominant win over Pitt that saw SMU skyrocket up in the AP Top 25, the Mustangs had the week off on Saturday but things broke beautifully for them. With Miami’s loss to Georgia Tech, Rhett Lashlee’s team is now the only unbeaten team in ACC play, giving them the easiest path to the conference championship game and a shot at a CFP auto-bid. And with the way this team has played since the move to Kevin Jennings at quarterback, they might be the favorites to do it now. 

12. Georgia Bulldogs

Full disclosure, I have no earthly idea what to make of Georgia, even after 11 weeks of the regular season. At their best, they put a hurting on both Clemson and Texas, which should be indicative of the ceiling that the Bulldogs have this season. The flip side of that, though, is that they were embarrassed in the first half against Alabama and for the full game on Saturday against Ole Miss. Those two signature wins for Kirby Smart’s team will keep the Dawgs ranked inside of the Top 10, especially with neither loss being all that bad. The Tennessee matchup next week, however, looms large, especially with the offense struggling. 

11. Ole Miss Rebels

LSU losing on Saturday night against Alabama is actually the best thing that could happen in-tandem with Ole Miss taking down Georgia. It would’ve been hard to justify moving the Rebels over a Tigers team that beat them with the same record. But now, Lane Kiffin’s team can ride the high of a dominant win over the Dawgs into the Top 12 and start to legitimately think about a relatively comfy road to a 10-2 record and, perhaps, a CFP spot.

No. 10-9

10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Not that there was ever any question given what Florida State has devolved into this season but Notre Dame continued their tour of domination on Saturday night as they put a thumping on the Seminoles, clearly looking for some more style points to try and sway some voters. They got them in the blowout victory, holding FSU under 200 yards of total offense while Riley Leonard threw for 215 yards with a touchdown and rushed for 70 more with two rushing scores. 

The big thing with the Fighting Irish at this point is how penal the Northern Illinois loss seems. It’s by far the worst loss of any team currently in the CFP conversation, which the first Playoff rankings made clear and, to some degree, which the AP Top 25 voters have been making clear. But if they can continue to take care of business against Virginia, Army and USC, then it’ll be impossible to see Notre Dame not getting a berth in the 12-team field. 

9. Alabama Crimson Tide

Jalen Milroe is the boogeyman that haunts the dreams of Brian Kelly. While Alabama was the favorite on the road in Death Valley for this game on Saturday night, the Crimson Tide completely dominated start to finish. The star quarterback was front and center for that, rushing for four touchdowns and nearly 200 yards in the blowout win. He might not even have been the most impressive part of the win. 

Alabama’s defense put on a clinic defending Garrett Nussmeier and a potent LSU offense. This Tide secondary has shown some cause for concern at times this year, but the unit top-to-bottom was shutdown in a tough road environment to make this game completely in favor of Bama.  Now with this victory under their belt, the Tide very much are in great shape to coast to a College Football Playoff berth. 

No. 8-7

8. Miami Hurricanes

So many times this season, we’ve seen Mario Cristobal’s Miami Hurricanes stick their hand over the flame but ultimately not get burned. Whether that was against Cal, against Louisville, or against Virginia Tech, The U could’ve been considered lucky to still be undefeated entering Week 11. But that type of roulette is always going to catch up to a team and, on Saturday in Atlanta against Georgia Tech, that’s exactly what happened. 

Really, it was the recipe for a first Miami loss that anyone could’ve seen coming. This Hurricanes defense that has quietly been generous to opposing offenses all season had no answers for Haynes King and the Yellow Jackets ground game and then Cam Ward couldn’t play Superman to save his team again. Miami is still in line for an ACC title and a CFP spot if they can win out but this was definitely a fall-back-to-earth moment for The U.

7. BYU Cougars

I said coming into Holy War that there weren't really football reasons that came to mind as to why BYU could lose to rival Utah given where the two rival programs had been trending. And yet, it felt impossible to not put the Cougars on upset alert because of the nature of this rivalry. That proved true in an absolute thriller at Rice-Eccles as BYU staved off what seemed like a surefire loss somehow to win.

Jake Retzlaff and the Cougars escaped a fourth-and-10 backed up to their own goal-line basically with an ill-timed Utah penalty to keep the drive alive, then found magic with some up-tempo offense and a big play to Chase Roberts that set up the game-winning field goal with only three seconds remaining. It was sweaty, it was close, but at the end of the day, the Cougars stayed perfect and are still in control of their own destiny, both for the Big 12 title and the Playoff.

No. 6-5

6. Indiana Hoosiers

For the first nine games of Indiana’s undefeated start to the 2024 season, the Hoosiers were the epitome of frontrunners. Outside of falling behind 10-0 to Michigan State — which Indiana responded to with 47 unanswered points of their own — the Hoosiers hadn’t truly been in a dogfight. But they got themselves in one against Michigan on Saturday. And it’s again a credit to Curt Cignetti and his team that they persevered and got the gritty 20-15 win in Bloomington. 

One of the critical aspects of this matchup was Indiana facing the best athletes they’ve seen this season, particularly in the trenches. We saw that somewhat limit what the Hoosiers were able to do offensively, giving us a rock fight. And while Michigan’s offense has been poor all season, the Indiana defense continued to find the right stops to hold the Wolverines to field goals and get a game-clinching turnover on downs. However, the Hoosiers will need to be better if they want to have a chance off the bye when they finally get their showdown with Ohio State. 

5. Tennessee Volunteers

The good news: Tennessee avoided a potential letdown spot on Saturday night with an inferior Mississippi State team coming to Knoxville. The bad news: Josh Heupel’s team picked up that win in Week 11 with Gaston Moore playing the second half after Nico Iamleava was removed from the game after halftime with an injury that looms large for this team. That puts a sour note on the runaway victory for the Vols. 

We know that this Tennessee defense has been its calling card all year long. However, Iamaleava appeared to be coming into his own over the past couple of games and had a big first half prior to suffering the injury. Now all eyes will be on his status moving forward, especially with a massive showdown against rival Georgia looming for the Vols next week. 

No. 4-3

4. Penn State Nittany Lions

Do I truly believe that the Penn State Nittany Lions are the fourth-best team in college football? Not even a little bit. But, based on where they were ranked in the AP Top 25 and the CFP rankings after a loss to Ohio State in which they failed to score an offensive touchdown, they’re going to get back into the Top 5. They can thank Georgia Tech and Ole Miss for upset victories that made that happen but, to the Nittany Lions’ credit, they did rebound well against Washington.

Led by their stellar defense that, all things considered, was not at all the reason they fell to the Buckeyes, Penn State jumped out to a four-score lead in the first half against the Huskies and never looked back. To be sure, it was far from an eye-popping offensive effort but, at the same time, they didn’t need it. However, the question remains the same for James Franklin and this team: Against the best of the best, can they get it done? We still don’t know. 

3. Texas Longhorns

Throughout the week, there were several college football analysts who looked at the remaining four games for the Texas Longhorns, then looked at the production of Quinn Ewers since his return from an oblique injury and wondered if Steve Sarkisian would make a switch to Arch Manning at some point. Ewers made that type of talk look completely silly on Saturday as Texas laid the hammer down on Florida in Austin, 49-17, in a game that wasn’t even that close. 

While he wasn’t perfect, Ewers and the Longhorns were dialed on offense as the quarterback threw for 333 yards and five touchdowns on only 27 attempts. He looked healthier and much more confident off the bye, which is a great sign for Texas. The defense was suffocating before the game was well out of hand against Florida’s third-string quarterback but it was the exact type of game Sark and his team needed to see. 

No. 2-1

2. Ohio State Buckeyes

Let’s be honest, we’re not exactly going to learn much more about Ohio State when they’re matched up against a seemingly lifeless Purdue team that could be on the verge of parting ways with head coach Ryan Walters. Having said that, it was further confirmed that Ryan Day’s Buckeyes are one of the best team’s in the country as they wholly embarrassed the Boilermakers in a 45-0 rout set in Columbus. 

As I’ve said for much of the season, Jim Knowles’ defense was the star in this one, though that shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering the ineptitude of Purdue’s offense right now. But Will Howard played a stellar game as well with four total touchdowns on the day. Ohio State should have another cruise-control matchup next week at Northwestern before their much-anticipated date in The Shoe with unbeaten Indiana.

1. Oregon Ducks

If you just look at the final score of Saturday night’s matchup and the 39-18 victory for the top-ranked Ducks, you probably will just think that, even if they didn’t cover the 24-point spread, Oregon did their job. However, this matchup was far closer in Eugene than you might realize and had some chances to go sideways at various times. Make no mistake, Dan Lanning’s team indeed did get the job done, but this might not have been their best effort overall. 

The defense, for the most part, was what you want from Oregon. They held Maryland to under 300 total yards of offense on the night and forced three turnovers, a couple of which were crucial. Even as Dillon Gabriel became the career leader in touchdowns responsible for in college football history, though, the offense was a bit lackluster. There’s no real cause for concern with the Ducks, especially with Wisconsin, a bye, and Washington left on the schedule. But this also wasn’t an overly impressive effort either.