Ranked Teams That Will Finish the Season Outside the Top 25
After five weeks of the college football season, the only thing we know is that we still don't know anything.
Adam Kramer of Bleacher Report wrote a whole post-Saturday column about the lack of a true No. 1 team, but things get even more confused as we descend the Associated Press Top 25 and analyze the teams at the bottom.
We know not all ranked teams will finish the year with small numbers beside their name. The poll released Oct. 5 last season had Notre Dame at No. 6, Oklahoma at No. 11, Texas A&M at No. 14, Oklahoma State at No. 16, East Carolina at No. 19, Nebraska at No. 21 and Stanford at No. 25.
None of those teams finished ranked in the final poll.
Here are five teams who could follow their lead.
No. 24 Toledo
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Toledo crept into the rankings this week and is definitely an awesome story.
This was still the easiest call on the list.
Because they play in the Mid-American Conference, the Rockets have no margin for error. One loss will drop them from the ranks of the Top 25. No matter when and where that loss occurs, it will not allow head coach Matt Campbell's team to stay ranked.
Home games against Northern Illinois and Western Michigan both look losable, and a road trip to Bowling Green will probably see Toledo cast as an underdog. Running back Kareem Hunt has been in and out of the lineup with hamstring issues, and the Rockets can't afford for their best player to struggle with injuries.
They need him to carry the load (literally) each week.
No. 23 California
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I hate the thought of writing this since I've spent months driving Cal's bandwagon, but when you barely win at home, 34-28, against Washington State, you probably don't deserve to be ranked anymore.
The Bears are 5-0 but haven't beaten anybody of note, and it's hard to find definite wins on their remaining schedule. Their next four games are at Utah, at UCLA, vs. USC and at Oregon, and they're likely to be underdogs in all four.
Jared Goff is the best quarterback in college football, and the defense has improved. But the former is not a miracle-worker, and the latter still has issues. This team is probably one of the 25 best in America, but the schedule won't allow it to finish inside the Top 25.
That would be a shame, but it's true.
No. 21 Oklahoma State
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Oklahoma State. What do we make of it?
The Cowboys nearly lost to the Texas Longhorns—who subsequently lost by 43 points at TCU—and Kansas State, which was down to its fifth-string quarterback.
The first of those wins required numerous beneficial calls from the refs, and the second required a free first down for which the Big 12 has already apologized. "Disciplinary actions will be addressed with both the field officials and chain crew," conference supervisor of officials Walt Anderson acknowledged in a statement after the game.
That's a bad sign.
Despite its 5-0 record, head coach Mike Gundy's team has looked pedestrian, which is why it still ranks outside the Top 20. That's scary since the schedule is about to get much harder. Starting next week at West Virginia and then following with games at Texas Tech and vs. TCU, Baylor and Oklahoma, this slate features at least four losses.
Think of the Cowboys like Texas Tech two years ago, when the Red Raiders opened 7-0 but lost their final five games of the regular season.
Maybe this is a Big 12 tradition?
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No. 20 UCLA
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UCLA is having a cursed season, and we ignored it for so long because the Bruins were still undefeated.
After a convincing 38-23 home loss to Arizona State, however, they no longer receive the benefit of the doubt.
Head coach Jim Mora's team has lost three of its five best defenders—linebacker Myles Jack, defensive end Eddie Vanderdoes and cornerback Fabian Moreau—to season-ending injuries and just lost to a Sun Devils team that Texas A&M and USC beat thoroughly.
The Aggies and Trojans showed how Top 25 teams deal with ASU. The Bruins showed how non-Top 25 teams deal with ASU. It's not really their fault because injuries have been such a factor, but it's hard to ignore this team's issues.
True freshman quarterback Josh Rosen is a gem, but his first year should feature radical ups and downs like that of Christian Hackenberg at Penn State, when the Nittany Lions finished 7-5 and unranked.
Even the close win over BYU looks worse in hindsight after Michigan beat the Cougars 31-0 a couple of weeks ago.
Whom has UCLA really beaten?
No. 4 Michigan State
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Michigan State has been a mess so far this season.
Ignore the No. 4 ranking—a product of how it performed the past two years and how good it looked on paper—and you'll find a team that's struggled all five weeks and looks disjointed on both sides of the ball.
Sparty is 0-5 against the spread and needed a late stop to beat Purdue last week at home. Safety RJ Williamson tore his bicep against the Boilermakers and will miss at least the next six games, per Joe Rexrode of the Detroit Free Press.
Williamson joins linebacker Ed Davis and cornerback Vayante Copeland as important defensive starters shelved with injuries. Even before those losses, this defense was a far cry from 2013's "No Fly Zone"; now it's in a completely different league.
MSU has a modest remaining schedule, but road trips to Ohio State, Michigan and Nebraska and a home game with Penn State all look losable. If it loses to the Buckeyes and Wolverines (which it should) and then finds another loss on its schedule, it will finish 9-3 with no true quality wins thanks to Oregon's apparent collapse in the Pac-12.
That is not the profile of a ranked postseason team.
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