The afternoon slate of college football’s Week 5 featured several close calls for ranked teams and one significant upset. While No. 1 Ohio State went to Seattle and beat Washington relatively comfortably, No. 4 LSU’s trip to No. 1Ole Miss ended in disaster for the Tigers. No. 9 Texas A&M and No. 15 Tennessee also flirted with trouble in their SEC matchups against Auburn and Mississippi State respectively, but both got out unscathed.
The rankings continue to shift and reform as teams work their way into their conference schedules. The rankings going into Week 6 will continue that trend. But how far should LSU fall? How high should Ole Miss climb?
Projected college football rankings after LSU, Tennessee, Ohio State, Texas A&M win
- Ohio State
- Miami
- Penn State
- Georgia
- Oregon
- Oklahoma
- Ole Miss
- Texas A&M
- Texas
- Indiana
- LSU
- Texas Tech
- Florida State
- Iowa State
- Tennessee
- Georgia Tech
- Alabama
- Vanderbilt
- Notre Dame
- Illinois
- Michigan
- Missouri
- BYU
- Arizona State
- USF
Ole Miss deserves a nice boost
Ole Miss has already played three SEC games and they’ve come out undefeated. The win over LSU was their most impressive. Defensively, they kept Garrett Nussmeier bottled up. Offensively, they were just efficient enough with Trinidad Chambliss at the helm to keep their noses in front for most of the game.
Advanced stats already loved Ole Miss before this game. They ranked No. 7 in FPI going in and their stature should only improve in that measure. With a real quality win under their belt, I’m happy to vault them up into the Top 10.
And they could rise higher if Oregon loses to Penn State.
LSU’s offensive troubles finally bit them in the behind
LSU fans will tell you this was a long time coming. Their win over Clemson hasn’t aged well. At the time, a toothless offense could be attributed to facing an elite defense. But Clemson has allowed points to lesser opponents while LSU has struggled to find much significant success themselves.
An offense helmed by Garrett Nussmeier — one of the most talented QBs in the country — shouldn’t look this unimpressive on a game-in-game-out basis. He was limited to 197 yards through the air with a touchdown and interception. Meanwhile, the run game was stifled to the tune of just 57 yards.
LSU hasn’t looked like a top 10 team since a mirage of a victory over a top 5 team that now sits 1-3. It’s about time they drop out.
Tennessee and Texas A&M survive and advance
In SEC play, only one thing matters: Win. Style points are irrelevant at a certain point. Your record will take care of anything style points can’t. So yeah, Tennessee and Texas A&M had to eke out wins over Auburn and Mississippi State. There’s no shame in that.
Auburn and MSU were both receiving votes in the AP poll going into the week. Both wins are solid, especially in showing the way the two teams found ways to finish.
I’m not moving either up significantly, even so. They’ll both have opportunities to rise with future marquee matchups.
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