NCAA Football Rankings 2014: Predicting the Top 25 After Week 10

Week 10 was a week of scares more than upsets, and the effect it will have on the Week 11 Associated Press poll should be minimal because of that.

Undefeated Florida State trailed 21-0 at Louisville before coming back to win on Thursday. Undefeated Mississippi State trailed 10-7 at halftime before coming to beat Arkansas, 17-10. One-loss Notre Dame needed a full 60 minutes to beat Navy in FedEx Field. One-loss TCU needed a last-second field goal to win at West Virginia.

All of those teams were in last week's Top 10.

Alas, it's not like Week 10 was completely devoid of upsets (*cough* Georgia) and other impactful results, making it a fine appetizer for what's shaping up to be a great slate of Week 11 games.

Here's a guess at what Sunday afternoon's poll might look like:

Team	Record	Previous	Week 10 Result
1. Mississippi State	8-0	1	def. Arkansas, 17-10
2. Florida State	8-0	2	def. Louisville, 42-31
3. Auburn	7-1	4	def. Ole Miss, 35-31
4. Alabama	7-1	3	BYE
5. Oregon	8-1	5	def. Stanford, 45-16
6. Notre Dame	7-1	6	def. Navy, 49-39
7. Michigan State	7-1	8	BYE
8. TCU	7-1	10	def. West Virginia, 31-30
9. Kansas State	7-1	11	def. Oklahoma State, 48-14
10. Baylor	7-1	12	def. Kansas, 60-14
11. Ohio State	7-1	13	def. Illinois, 55-14
12. Arizona State	7-1	15	def. Utah, 19-16
13. Ole Miss	7-2	7	lost to Auburn, 35-31
14. Nebraska	8-1	17	def. Purdue, 35-14
15. LSU	7-2	16	BYE
16. Oklahoma	6-2	19	def. Iowa State, 59-14
17. Georgia	6-2	9	lost to Florida, 38-20
18. Clemson	6-2	22	BYE
19. Utah	6-2	18	lost to Arizona State, 19-16
20. Marshall	8-0	23	BYE
21. UCLA	6-2	25	def. Arizona, 17-7
22. Duke	7-1	24	def. Pittsburgh, 51-48
23. Arizona	6-2	14	lost to UCLA, 17-7
24. Colorado State	8-1	NR	def. San Jose State, 38-31
25. West Virginia	6-3	20	lost to TCU, 31-30

Note: Rankings reflect a prediction of the Week 11 AP poll—not how the author would rank the teams himself.  

Biggest Risers

UCLA

Gus Ruelas/Associated Press

UCLA dominated a lot more than the final score (17-7) indicates against Arizona, outgaining the Wildcats by more than 200 yards.

Jim Mora's team controlled the clock with a ball-possession offense and a finally actualized defense, holding the ball for more than 38 minutes. Quarterback Brett Hundley had 26 passes and 23 rush attempts, not lighting up the box score but lugging his share of the weight.

The Bruins were lucky to win six of their first eight games. A bad bounce here or there could have seen them lose to Cal and/or Colorado, in which case they never would have been ranked in the first place. But now that they've beaten both of the Arizona schools and only lost to one-loss Oregon and two-loss Utah, you'd have to look long and hard to find a two-loss team with a better win-loss profile.

Expect them to rise accordingly.

Clemson

Clemson is one of the two biggest risers in the projected poll despite not having played in Week 10.

Yeah…it was that type of weekend.

The Tigers benefitted from a long string of losses or unimpressive wins by the teams around them. Three of the four teams directly ahead of them in last week's poll—Utah, West Virginia and East Carolina—all came up in defeat. And the one-loss team close behind them, Duke, needed overtime to beat a not-very-good Pitt team in the afternoon.

There is no concept of Zugzwang in college football. Sometimes, you're allowed to gain an advantage by passing on your turn.

And that's precisely what Clemson just did.

Biggest Fallers

Georgia

John Raoux/Associated Press

Georgia did not just get beaten by a 3-3 Florida team that was combusting at the seams. It got worked by a 3-3 Florida team that was combusting at the seams, falling by 18 points, 38-20.

The loss was not a good look for a Bulldogs team that entered with one loss and ostensibly controlled its fate for the College Football Playoff. Presently, it no longer even controls its fate in the SEC East.

Georgia still holds the tiebreaker over Missouri in the division, but the Tigers are one game up in the loss column with toss-up affairs at Texas A&M and Tennessee and versus Arkansas still looming. Georgia still has to play at Kentucky and versus Auburn in SEC play.

It is not (even close to) a lock to reach Atlanta.

East Carolina

When you're right, you're right. And in this case (finally!) I was right.

I spent the entire week before this game honking about East Carolina's fraudulence, specifically the fact that it had not played a single team with a winning record after nine weeks. Temple was its first, and the Owls capitalized with a 21-10 win in the early afternoon.

ECU wasn't as quite bad as the final score indicated. It failed to recover any of the game's eight fumbles, a massive statistical anomaly, and outgained Temple by 293 yards. A losing team winning the yardage battle so decisively is almost without precedent, per Matt Fortuna of ESPN.com:

Still, a team worthy of making an Access Bowl would not muster 10 points at Temple. East Carolina was the only Group of Five team in the first CFP rankings, but it will fall (far) out in the second edition.