NCAA Football Rankings: Predicting the Top 25 After Week 7
One of the biggest Saturdays of the 2015 college football season definitely lived up to the hype with several dramatic showdowns between ranked foes.
A weekend like this one was already expected to cause some major shakeups in the Associated Press Top 25, but the way these clashes turned out will make for a lot of intrigue when Week 8's poll comes out Sunday. (Looking at you, Ann Arbor.)
A couple of ranked teams suffered surprise upset losses in Week 7, including a program that was once considered a strong playoff contender just a few weeks ago.
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Some new blood is set to move into the coveted Top 25 now as the race for the Group of Five's top-flight bowl bid continues to heat up.
Like we do at this time each week, here is the projected Top 25 following this weekend's action along with the most notable rises and falls. The top seven stays secure with victories across the board, but the rest of the spots are in for some big-time changes.
| 1. Ohio State | 1 | 7-0 | Won 38-10 vs. Penn State |
| 2. Baylor | 2 | 6-0 | Won 62-38 vs. West Virginia |
| 3. TCU | 3 | 7-0 | Won 45-21 at Iowa State |
| 4. Utah | 4 | 6-0 | Won 34-18 vs. Arizona State |
| 5. Clemson | 5 | 6-0 | Won 34-17 vs. Boston College |
| 6. LSU | 6 | 6-0 | Won 35-28 vs. No. 8 Florida |
| 7. Michigan State | 7 | 7-0 | Won 27-23 at No. 12 Michigan |
| 8. Alabama | 10 | 6-1 | Won 41-23 at No. 9 Texas A&M |
| 9. Florida State | 11 | 6-0 | Won 41-21 vs. Louisville |
| 10. Notre Dame | 14 | 6-1 | Won 41-31 vs. USC |
| 11. Stanford | 15 | 5-1 | Won 56-35 vs. No. 18 UCLA |
| 12. Iowa | 17 | 7-0 | Won 40-10 at No. 20 Northwestern |
| 13. Oklahoma State | 16 | 6-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 14. Florida | 8 | 6-1 | Lost 35-28 at No. 6 LSU |
| 15. Oklahoma | 19 | 5-1 | Won 55-0 at Kansas State |
| 16. Texas A&M | 9 | 5-1 | Lost 41-23 vs. No. 10 Alabama |
| 17. Toledo | 22 | 6-0 | Won 63-20 vs. Eastern Michigan |
| 18. Memphis | NR | 6-0 | Won 37-24 vs. No. 13 Ole Miss |
| 19. California | 23 | 5-1 | BYE WEEK |
| 20. Michigan | 12 | 5-2 | Lost 27-23 vs. No. 7 Michigan State |
| 21. Houston | 24 | 6-0 | Won 42-7 at Tulane |
| 22. Duke | 25 | 5-1 | BYE WEEK |
| 23. Temple | NR | 6-0 | Won 30-16 vs. UCF |
| 24. Ole Miss | 13 | 5-2 | Lost 37-24 at Memphis |
| 25. Mississippi State | NR | 5-2 | Won 45-20 vs. Louisiana Tech |
Moving up
Iowa
Don't look now, but Kirk Ferentz has the Hawkeyes knocking on the door of a Top-10 spot as they start to pull away in the Big Ten West.
Iowa improved to 7-0 on Saturday by throttling Northwestern, 40-10, away from home. With star running back Jordan Canzeri going down with injury one week after his record-breaking performance, Akrum Wadley stepped up and posted 204 rushing yards and four touchdowns against the once-proud Wildcats defense.
"We’re not really thinking about the broader picture, about what kind of message we’re sending other teams," quarterback C.J. Beathard said, per Chad Leistikow of HawkCentral.com. "We just know we wanted to come out and get after Northwestern."
Iowa definitely sent a message to the rest of the Big Ten on Saturday, and that should resonate with AP voters. The Hawkeyes gain an extra spot in this projection—over idle Oklahoma State—and slide right behind a red-hot Stanford team heading into a bye week.
Memphis
In a Saturday filled with high-profile matchups between ranked teams, Memphis took a good chunk of the spotlight early with a 13-point victory over Ole Miss at home.
Quarterback Paxton Lynch was excellent throughout for the Tigers, who scored 31 unanswered points between the end of the first quarter and the early portion of the third quarter. Memphis then held on to the huge upset win by shutting out Ole Miss in the fourth.
Now Memphis is sporting a 6-0 record and a stronger resume in the race for the coveted New Year's Six bowl bid among the Group of Five teams. The Tigers also routed power-conference doormat Kansas away from home this season and edged the high-powered offenses of Bowling Green and Cincinnati in Weeks 3 and 4.
A move from unranked to No. 18 seems like a lot for Memphis, but don't underestimate the power of having the headline-making upset of the day. The Tigers jump over idle California, Duke and a host of other one- and two-loss teams here.
Temple and Mississippi State
Temple entered Week 7 with more votes in the AP poll than Memphis, but the Owls have two factors working against them this week—none of their wins are as big as an upset over a ranked team like Ole Miss, and they also needed a fourth-quarter rally to put away winless UCF on Saturday.
"You couldn’t have had a faster start," Temple head coach Matt Rhule said, per the Temple News. "But that being said really at the end of the day it’s penalties, fumbling the ball, dropping the ball. It’s not really anything else. It can be a little bit frustrating."
Mississippi State's inclusion in the Top 25 might cause quite a stir, and for good reason. The Bulldogs haven't had a big win this season, although their two losses came against two ranked opponents in the SEC West.
However, remember that these projections are what I expect the pollsters to do and not how I think things should be voted. And, like it or not, Mississippi State had the fourth-most votes outside the Top 25 in Week 7 behind Memphis, Temple and an Arizona State team that lost its third game of the season. Whether or not it's the right choice, normal poll movement says Mississippi State will most likely be in the Top 25 again.
Moving down
Florida and Texas A&M
The Gators and the Aggies, which were right beside each other in the Week 7 poll, both took tough losses Saturday in conference play.
Florida hung tough with LSU in Death Valley despite falling behind by two touchdowns in the second quarter and playing without suspended quarterback Will Grier. The Gators tied things up in the third before a fourth-quarter fake field goal gave LSU a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
Texas A&M's loss at home against Alabama, however, was a lot uglier. The Aggies threw three pick-sixes against the Crimson Tide, which never trailed in the contest. Texas A&M had only 32 rushing yards on 25 attempts as Alabama's Derrick Henry rushed for 236 yards.
The two SEC teams will have similar-sized falls in the polls after their first losses of the season. Florida drops to a spot just ahead of Oklahoma, which blew the doors off a Kansas State team that TCU and Oklahoma State struggled with this season. The Aggies, though, slide under the hard-to-figure-out Sooners.
Michigan
Well, well—what to make of the Michigan Wolverines after one of the most heartbreaking losses in college football history?
The Wolverines never trailed undefeated rival Michigan State at home until the final play of the game, when a fumbled snap on what was supposed to be a game-ending punt turned into an improbable touchdown for the visiting Spartans. The loss, quite simply, was unlike anything else.
Now comes the hard part of ranking the Wolverines, who were destined to break into the Top 10 before that final mishap. Their only two losses this season were decided by one possession, and they came against currently undefeated, Top-10 teams.
I believe the pollsters will have some sympathy for Jim Harbaugh's team after its second loss of the season. Undefeated Houston and Temple don't have any recent high-quality wins, and Michigan blasted a Northwestern team Duke lost against earlier this year. Even with the two defeats, UM stays ahead of those programs here.
Ole Miss
Times are quite tough for the Rebels, which once had the best-looking win of the college football season—a wild home victory against Alabama.
But now Ole Miss has lost two of its last three matchups, with Saturday's loss against Memphis coming after the Rebels opened up a 14-0 lead on the road. Ole Miss converted just four of its 13 third-down attempts, which turned out to be a huge difference against a much more efficient Memphis team, especially after the injury to Rebels star Robert Nkemdiche.
"On our end, very disappointing," Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze said, per Neal McCready of Rivals. "I've been on the other side of a couple of these wins, and I know what that feels like. But it's crushing to be on the other side. We did not play particularly well."
Fortunately for Ole Miss, several lower-ranked teams also fell this weekend, including UCLA and Northwestern. Without several can't-miss replacements lined up in the "Also Receiving Votes" category to replace those teams, don't be surprised at all if the Rebels stay in the Top 25 this week.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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