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
Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 3: No. 4-3
4. Texas Longhorns
Texas having a letdown game was all but inevitable after the ultimate high of knocking off Alabama last week, even if they were playing Wyoming this week. Indeed, that looked to be coming true. Quinn Ewers looked anything but sharp and the playmakers simply weren’t making plays. If not for the defense showing up, Texas could’ve been looking like the second victim of the Cowboys this season from the Big 12 – in fact, they almost were as it was 10-10 entering the fourth quarter.
But credit to Texas for turning it on when they needed to. The fourth quarter began with a monster screen play to Xavier Worthy that went to the house and the Longhorns turned it on from there, scoring 21 unanswered points in the final frame to get the 31-0 win.
That has to be the letdown game for the Longhorns, though. They begin Big 12 play next week, starting on the road in Waco against Baylor.
3. Florida State Seminoles
If not for Texas messing around with Wyoming, I was fully prepared to have the Longhorns leap Florida State for the No. 3 spot in the college football rankings. That’s because FSU went up to Chestnut Hill and messed around in their own right, and it almost got the Noles clipped by a Boston College team that has looked awful to start the 2023 season.
It was a sloppy effort from Mike Norvell’s team. There were special teams miscues, bad turnovers late, and even some mindless and costly penalties to boot. They were lucky to end up escaping with the 31-29 win against the Eagles, which is crazy to say given that they led 31-10 with under two minutes remaining in the third quarter.
The good news is that the scare still has Florida State unscathed. And after they were clearly looking ahead to Clemson next week, we should expect the Seminoles to give the Tigers their full attention and a much better effort than what we saw on Saturday.