College football rankings 2023: Projected Week 8 AP Top 25 after Notre Dame blasts USC, Washington prevails

Projected AP Top 25 college football rankings after Week 7: No. 4-3

4. Florida State Seminoles

Since the season-opening win, you could’ve made the argument that Florida State was lucky to remain among the unbeatens in college football. They nearly let Boston College shock the world, possibly should’ve lost to Clemson, and simply hadn’t been the dominant team that they looked capable of right out of the gate this season. 

On Saturday, they looked like that team again. 

Yes, the Seminoles were facing a downtrodden Syracuse team, but they’d been letting that type of group hang around far too much. Mike Norvell’s group didn’t let that be the case in Tallahassee in Week 7, however, as the defense held the Orange to just 261 total yards and three points while Jordan Travis and Keon Coleman went off for monster days at the office. The ACC may come down to North Carolina and FSU, which could be an unbelievable showdown for the conference title. 

3. Ohio State Buckeyes

Perhaps it was tongue-in-cheek, but you couldn’t look at any preview for the Ohio State Buckeyes this week without seeing a mention of the Spoilermakers as Ryan Day’s team went on the road to West Lafayette to face Purdue. That was only in conjecture, though. Because in practice, OSU put a hurting on the Boilermakers in Week 7. 

Even with their top three running backs out of action by the game’s end, Dallas Hayden stepped up and Kyle McCord, once again, made the wise choice to pepper Marvin Harrison Jr. Coupled with yet another elite defensive effort, the Buckeyes throttled Purdue to the tune of 41-7. 

This was a letdown spot with Penn State coming to Columbus last week, but it turns out that Ohio State might simply be just hitting its stride midway through the 2023 season.