College football rankings 2023: Projected Week 4 AP Top 25 after Tennessee upset, Alabama, Texas, Georgia struggle

  • Tennessee's upset loss to Florida proves costly for Vols
  • Alabama falls in rankings despite a win
  • Georgia, Florida State, Texas all stumble into wins
Alabama v USF
Alabama v USF / Julio Aguilar/GettyImages
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
6 of 8
Next

Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 3: No. 6-5

6. Ohio State Buckeyes

Congratulations, Ohio State. You finally delivered a performance in the 2023 season that warrants some real, legitimate praise. 

Because of their lackluster showings against Indiana and even Youngstown State, I spent most of the week yelling that the Buckeyes could be in for more of a fight against Western Kentucky than you might’ve realized. I was dead wrong. 

Kyle McCord looked by far the most comfortable he has at the helm of this offense, going 19-of-23 for 318 yards and three touchdowns, while TreVeyon Henderson, Miyan Williams and the defense more than did their part too. 

Notre Dame is a whole different beast in terms of level of competition. Even still, we hadn’t seen anything close to this from Ohio State in the first two weeks. If they start rounding into form, we know how dangerous this team could be. 

5. USC Trojans

Caleb Williams and the USC Trojans had the week off after playing in Week 0 this year and after a dominant 3-0 start. Of course, that has come in three home games against San Jose State, Nevada, and Stanford, but a win’s a win and the Trojans haven’t scored fewer than 56 points in a game this season – even with the reigning Heisman winner still not seeing the fourth quarter. 

USC will play its first road game of the year next week as they go on the road to face Arizona State. The Sun Devils are fighting through it right now, so that won’t be a test. However, USC needs to take advantage of this week off and even the trip to Tempe with trips to Colorado and Notre Dame looming in two of the three weeks after visiting ASU.