NCAA Football Rankings 2014: Predicting the Top 25 After Week 14

Last Saturday—Week 13 on the college football calendar—left us starving. Not so for Week 14. 

It's only fitting that on a weekend when we celebrate family, food and football, our appetites were more than satisfied with the rivalry action on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Florida State overcame Jameis Winston's worst-ever performance to stave off an upset from Florida. Ole Miss proved to be too much for Mississippi State in one of the most highly anticipated editions of the Egg Bowl ever.

And in the week's—and maybe even the entire season's—best game, Alabama scored 24 of the final 27 points to beat Auburn in the highest-scoring Iron Bowl of all time. 

The shake-up in the polls will be inevitable. Let's predict how the AP poll will look come Sunday.

Team	Record	Previous	Week 14 Result
1. Florida State	12-0	1	def. Florida 24-19
2. Alabama	11-1	2	def. Auburn 55-44
3. Oregon	11-1	3	def. Oregon State 47-19
4. Baylor	10-1	5	def. Texas Tech 48-46
5. TCU	10-1	6	def. Texas 48-10
6. Ohio State	11-1	7	def. Michigan 42-28
7. Michigan State	10-2	10	def. Penn State 34-10
8. Arizona	10-2	12	def. Arizona State 42-35
9. Kansas State	9-2	11	def. Kansas 51-13
10. Mississippi State	10-2	4	lost to Ole Miss 31-17
11. Wisconsin	10-2	14	def. Minnesota 34-24
12. Georgia Tech	10-2	16	def. Georgia 30-24
13. Missouri	10-2	17	def. Arkansas 21-14
14. Ole Miss	9-3	18	def. Mississippi State 31-17
15. Oklahoma	8-3	20	BYE
16. Georgia	9-3	8	lost to Georgia Tech 30-24
17. Arizona State	9-3	13	lost to Arizona 42-35
18. UCLA	9-3	9	lost to Stanford 31-10
19. Clemson	9-3	23	def. South Carolina 35-17
20. Louisville	9-3	24	def. Kentucky 44-40
21. Boise State	10-2	25	def. Utah State 50-19
22. Auburn	8-4	15	lost to Alabama 55-44
23. Duke	9-3	NR	def. Wake Forest 41-21
24. USC	8-4	NR	def. Notre Dame 49-14
25. LSU	8-4	NR	def. Texas A&M 23-17

Note: Rankings reflect a prediction of the Week 14 AP poll—not how the author would rank the teams himself.  

Dave Tulis/Associated Press

Biggest Risers

Arizona

The Wildcats held court against their in-state rival Arizona State, winning a high-scoring game 42-35. The win gives them the Pac-12 South crown and a date with No. 3-ranked Oregon next week in the Pac-12 title game.

Quarterback Anu Solomon and Co. are hoping they can get a repeat performance of the brisk Thursday night in October, when they shocked the Ducks in Eugene. 

Head coach Rich Rodriguez always has a solid game plan in place when the Wildcats take on Oregon, and next week should be no different.

Another upset win would catapult the 'Cats into the discussion as a dark-horse playoff candidate, though they'd need a bit of help to sway the committee. 

Georgia Tech

Hats off to coach Paul Johnson and his Yellow Jackets, who have very quietly put together an excellent season, with back-to-back wins against ranked teams in Clemson and in-state rival Georgia.

If not for an inexplicable two-week stumble down Tobacco Road, in which Georgia Tech dropped consecutive games to Duke and North Carolina, respectively, we could be talking about next week's ACC Championship Game versus Florida State as one of the games of the year. 

Still, the Yellow Jackets have a chance to further inject themselves into the college football narrative by knocking off Florida State on Saturday and taking out the last of the nation's unbeatens.

Biggest Fallers

UCLA

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

We never should have trusted you, UCLA. The Bruins had a golden opportunity to keep their slim hopes of a playoff berth alive, simply by beating the up-and-down Stanford Cardinal on Friday and setting up a rematch with Oregon for the Pac-12 title.

Instead, Jim Mora's crew had one of its worst performances of the year, dropping the game 31-10, at home nonetheless. Now, the Bruins must wait to find out where they'll be headed for their bowl game.

A 9-3 finish with two inexplicable losses to Utah and Stanford is a far cry from what many people thought would be a dark-horse national title contender before the season began. 

Georgia

You can't blame the Bulldogs for losing focus on Saturday. After Missouri's win on Friday wrapped up the SEC East title for the Tigers—giving Georgia no shot at an SEC Championship Game showdown with Alabama—it's understandable that the motivation might not have been there.

Still, Mark Richt can't be happy with how his team performed against a surging, albeit inferior Georgia Tech team. The Dawgs gave up almost 400 yards on the ground to the Yellow Jackets and turned the ball over three times.

Oh, and what could have been if not for the Todd Gurley suspension/injury. Nick Chubb performed very well in his absence, but Gurley's ability to change the game with a single touch was sorely missed.