College football rankings 2023, Projected Week 14 CFP Top 25: Michigan downs OSU, Alabama, Washington hang on
- Michigan ended Ohio States Playoff hopes with a third straight win in The Game
- Alabama and Washington held on for dear life in rivalry games
- Louisville's CFP dreams died in shades of Bluegrass
Projected Top 25 College Football Playoff rankings after Week 13: No. 10-9
10. Penn State Nittany Lions
You couldn’t write a more pitch-perfect script for the end of Penn State’s regular season to exemplify what James Franklin’s team is than their blowout victory on the road against Michigan State on Friday night.
Basically since the loss to Ohio State that featured an ugly offensive showing, we’ve viewed the Nittany Lions as the clear-cut third-best team in the Big Ten, but also as a team that was a tier below OSU and Michigan. We saw that in droves as Drew Allar, Kaytron Allen and the entire Penn State offense torched Michigan State while the defense completely suffocated Sparty, holding MSU to only 53 sack-adjusted total yards of offense.
With that emphatic win and Louisville’s loss, Penn State now has a case for making a New Year’s Six game and should comfortably vault back into the Top 10. However, the season is over until their bowl game as the losses to OSU and UofM eliminated their Big Ten and CFP chances several weeks ago.
9. Missouri Tigers
Shouts out to America’s Team – the real one. Eli Drinkwitz gave an impassioned speech to the media after routing Arkansas in the Battle Line rivalry game on Friday afternoon about the adversity and obstacles that his Missouri team has overcome to get to this point and why that should endear the college football-watching parts of the country. And given that he has a 10-2 team vying for a New Year’s Six bid, he might be right.
The win over the Hogs was dominant. Arkansas didn’t register a first down in the first half while Missouri did almost whatever it wanted, particularly with Cody Schrader having another monster day with 217 yards rushing. With losses to LSU and Georgia on the season, the Tigers don’t have any real chance at the Playoff. However, they are surely a New Year’s Six lock as a team already ranked in the Top 10 and adding another notch to their belt in Rivalry Week.