College football rankings 2023: Projected Week 7 AP Top 25 after Oklahoma stuns Texas, Georgia routs Kentucky
- Oklahoma turned the Horns Down in Texas' dream of perfect season
- Georgia, Michigan showed exceptionally dominant form
- Louisville ended all of Notre Dame's hopes, keep their own alive
Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 6: No. 4-3
4. Ohio State Buckeyes
I’ve been anything but shy about voicing concerns about this year’s Ohio State team and that looked as if it might come to a head on Saturday in the first half against Maryland. The teams were knotted 10-10 going into halftime and the Terps then took a 17-10 lead quickly coming out of the locker room. Whatever Ryan Day said from then, however, must’ve been taken to heart, because the Buckeyes turned it on and didn’t look back with 27 unanswered points to secure the victory.
Kyle McCord was awful early in this game but pulled it together late, most notably leaning heavily on Marvin Harrison Jr. – which seems like a quality strategy in most instances. But it was Jim Knowles’ defense that continues to turn heads. They were nails after that early third-quarter Maryland touchdown, harassing Taulia Tagovailoa and forcing bad decisions.
I’m still not all the way there on the Buckeyes as a Playoff contender, but this was another step toward getting there.
3. Oklahoma Sooners
Big jump for the Sooners in the forthcoming college football rankings, but it’s more than deserved. The big question about Brent Venables’ Oklahoma coming into the week was whether or not they could continue to win against upper-tier competition given that they’d faced a relatively weak schedule to get to their 5-0 start.
They answered that and more on Saturday in Dallas. OU came out of the gates hot, particularly on defense, as they caused some early issues for Texas. But the real story was Dillon Gabriel, who was a stud in this game, accounting for just under 400 yards of total offense and two touchdowns, including the last-minute game-winner to Nic Anderson.
Oklahoma looks absolutely for real after the win and they take the Longhorns’ place as the No. 3-ranked team in college football after the monster victory in Red River.