NCAA Football Rankings 2015: Predicting the Top 25 After Week 9
At first glance, the Associated Press Top 25 action looked as boring as ever in Week 9.
Five of the nation's top seven teams were on bye weeks. The two Top Five teams in action lit up the scoreboard in conference wins. The middle of the poll was jam-packed with comfortable wins.
But—come on—this is college football on Halloween. Things were bound to get weird, and they definitely did Saturday night. A pair of Top 10 teams needed fourth-quarter scores and some late-game breaks to avoid big-time upsets on the road.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
And then there was an unbelievable and potentially legendary special teams touchdown for the third straight week, even though this one appeared to break several rules.
With the last AP poll before the College Football Playoff committee releases its almighty rankings Sunday afternoon, here are this week's predicted Top 25 and some highlighted risers and fallers.
| 1. Ohio State | 1 | 8-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 2. Baylor | 2 | 7-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 3. Clemson | 3 | 8-0 | Won 56-41 at NC State |
| 4. LSU | 4 | 7-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 5. TCU | 5 | 8-0 | Won 40-10 vs. West Virginia |
| 6. Michigan State | 6 | 8-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 7. Alabama | 7 | 7-1 | BYE WEEK |
| 8. Iowa | 10 | 8-0 | Won 31-15 vs. Maryland |
| 9. Stanford | 8 | 7-1 | Won 30-28 at Washington State |
| 10. Notre Dame | 9 | 7-1 | Won 24-20 at No. 21 Temple |
| 11. Florida | 11 | 7-1 | Won 27-3 vs. Georgia |
| 12. Oklahoma State | 12 | 8-0 | Won 70-53 at Texas Tech |
| 13. Utah | 13 | 7-1 | Won 27-12 vs. Oregon State |
| 14. Oklahoma | 14 | 7-1 | Won 62-7 at Kansas |
| 15. Memphis | 16 | 8-0 | Won 41-13 vs. Tulane |
| 16. Florida State | 17 | 7-1 | Won 45-21 vs. Syracuse |
| 17. Michigan | 15 | 6-2 | Won 29-26 at Minnesota |
| 18. Houston | 18 | 8-0 | Won 34-0 vs. Vanderbilt |
| 19. Ole Miss | 19 | 7-2 | Won 27-19 at Auburn |
| 20. Toledo | 20 | 7-0 | BYE WEEK |
| 21. North Carolina | NR | 7-1 | Won 26-19 at No. 23 Pittsburgh |
| 22. UCLA | 24 | 6-2 | Won 35-31 vs. Colorado |
| 23. Temple | 21 | 7-1 | Lost 24-20 vs. No. 9 Notre Dame |
| 24. Wisconsin | NR | 7-2 | Won 48-10 vs. Rutgers |
| 25. Mississippi State | 25 | 6-2 | BYE WEEK |
Moving up
Iowa
Sure, Iowa's home win over Maryland on Saturday wasn't gorgeous. But on a day when fellow Top 10 teams Stanford and Notre Dame both had to pull out narrow results away from home, a 16-point victory for the Hawkeyes doesn't look bad at all.
Iowa defeated Maryland with crushing defense, forcing four turnovers and holding the Terps to just 74 yards through the air. Cornerback Desmond King recorded his seventh interception in eight games and returned it for an 88-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.
"One of the best defenses in the country, one of the best defenses in the league," King said, per Chad Leistikow of HawkCentral.com. "It just gives us an advantage, knowing we can make anything happen for our team and get the ball back for us."
Iowa is undefeated and gaining national respect week after week. With an undefeated record, the Hawkeyes will leapfrog the one-loss Cardinal and the one-loss Fighting Irish to take the No. 8 spot in the AP poll, right behind an Alabama team with tremendous hype right before its showdown with LSU.
North Carolina
Welcome to the Top 25, North Carolina. Since falling to what has turned out to be a bad South Carolina team on the first Thursday night of the season—thanks in large part to several red-zone turnovers—the Tar Heels have done nothing but win games.
On Thursday night, UNC took control of the ACC's Coastal Division with a 26-19 road victory at a ranked Pittsburgh team, which had only lost to undefeated Iowa in 2015. The Tar Heels are finally looking like a complete and close-knit squad, with quarterback Marquise Williams leading the offense and first-year coordinator Gene Chizik sparking a defensive resurrection in Chapel Hill.
"You don't see bad or negative body language, negative talk around our sideline," Williams said, per ESPN.com. "We're a family. We love each other. You got my back. I got your back. That goes a long way."
With the trio of No. 21, No. 22 and No. 23 losing in Week 9, North Carolina looks like a perfect fit at No. 21, right behind undefeated and idle Toledo. The one-loss Tar Heels could climb even higher in the next few weeks, as they have a ton of momentum and a favorable schedule down the stretch.
Wisconsin
As the AP poll looks set to welcome North Carolina into the Top 25, it could—and should—bring Wisconsin back in as the calendar flips to November.
Unranked Wisconsin's two losses this season were both against Top 10 teams in Alabama and Iowa, with the latter only coming by four points. Since then, the Badgers have put together four straight Big Ten wins, including Saturday's 48-10 blasting of Rutgers.
The return from injury for running back Corey Clement, who hadn't played since the season opener against Alabama, kicked the Wisconsin offense into high gear Saturday. He ran for 115 yards and three touchdowns in his comeback game on just 11 attempts.
With Clement now back in action, Wisconsin has a huge spark on offense to go along with one of the nation's most dominant defenses in both scoring and yardage. The Badgers' resume is more impressive than that of Texas A&M and USC, which received more votes than Wisconsin last week but pulled off tight wins Saturday. I'm picking the pollsters to give Wisconsin a much-deserved leap.
Moving down
Temple
Anyone who picked Notre Dame to smack previously undefeated Temple on Saturday night was seriously disappointed, as the Owls went down to the wire against the Irish in the biggest game in school history.
The Owls forced two red-zone interceptions against Notre Dame and managed to keep things close despite a 467-265 disadvantage in yardage. Temple took a three-point lead with 4:45 remaining, but a dime from DeShone Kizer and a ridiculous diving interception by KeiVarae Russell in the final minutes gave the Irish the win.
"A lot of things happened to us tonight, but we just kept battling and battling," Temple head coach Matt Rhule said, per Aaron Kasinitz of PennLive.com. "And I thought we had a chance even until the last play."
Temple covered the spread and had a chance to knock off a Top 10 team on Saturday night. The Owls showed they're high-quality, and there's no reason why they should fall completely out of the Top 25 from No. 21. Expect Tyler Matakevich and the Owls to hang in the rankings this week.
Duke
Oh, Duke. The referees just blew it Saturday night.
The Hurricanes were able to pull off an unthinkable eight-lateral, game-winning kick return with what appeared to be a variety of missed penalties and an absolutely ridiculous review process. There's little reason to believe the touchdown should've stood, unless you believe in what Robby Kalland of CBS Sports described as "fun > rules."
But the Blue Devils still had to come from behind to take a late lead—at home—on a Miami team that nearly broke an FBS record for penalties and was playing in its first game under an interim head coach after the firing of Al Golden. This is also the same Miami team that lost 58-0 to Clemson last weekend.
Now with two home losses on the season to teams that aren't in the Top 25 range at this point, Duke just doesn't have enough to keep a spot in the AP poll this weekend.
Michigan
Normally, there's enough action in the Top 25 that the Moving Down sections of these weekly predictions mostly stick to teams that lost their games.
But Michigan is an interesting case in a week in which the only ranked teams to lose were near the bottom of the Top 25. The two-loss Wolverines came inches away from dropping their third game of the season Saturday night in a 29-26 road win over previously three-loss Minnesota.
Michigan came from behind on offense with its second-string quarterback in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, but its defense was somewhat fortunate to make a goal-line stand after a questionable, time-melting decision by the Minnesota offense.
With one-loss Florida State bouncing back for a four-touchdown win over Syracuse without its two star offensive players and undefeated Memphis hammering Tulane after a slow start, don't be surprised if Michigan takes a hit in the polls after the close win.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
