As we pick up the pieces from an active slate of college football games over the weekend, let’s take a crack at predicting what top 25 teams will be moving up, and down, in the Week 2 rankings.
This was definitely an opening Saturday to reminder, with two marquee games between top 10 ranked playoff hopefuls kicking off, and a third set for Sunday.
That’s in addition to another major non-conference matchup between Alabama and Florida State that was bound to tell us something about both teams. And it certainly did.
With several higher-ranked teams necessarily taking a loss in Week 1, that leaves quite a dilemma for the AP top 25 pollsters as they assemble the forthcoming rankings.
What will the AP voters make of all the changes?
On SI reveals our predictions for what teams will make the biggest moves up and down in the AP top 25 football rankings as we look ahead to Week 2 action.
Moving down: Texas
Last week’s ranking: No. 1
As hard as it may be to believe, this was the first time Texas ever debuted in the No. 1 position in any preseason college football rankings, ever.
Unfortunately for the Longhorns, their stay at No. 1 will end after one game.
Arch Manning was the subject of relentless hype and debate coming into the season, and he will be once again after decidedly underwhelming in his first major start, as Texas dropped the opener, 14-7, to reigning champion Ohio State.
Manning was billed as the reason why Texas could beat Ohio State in the opener, but 60 minutes later, the Longhorns’ quarterback looked like the reason they lost.
Something looked off right from the beginning when Manning delivered a one-hopper to DeAndre Moore, and other passes were off target, open receivers not seen, including what should have been a touchdown pass, and he seemed confused by some of Ohio State’s coverage designs.
After going 5 of 10 passing in the first half, Manning gained some confidence after the break, hitting Ryan Wingo on a 28-yard advance and finding Parker Livingstone for a 32-yard touchdown, and then dropping a gorgeous 30-yard pass to tight end Jack Endries.
But overall, a total of 37 percent of Manning’s throws in the game were off target, the most by a single Texas quarterback in any game in the last decade, according to ESPN’s figures.
Overreaction will be the order of the day for the former No. 1 overall recruit with that famous surname and all the attention he’s had since high school.
“For Arch, the expectations were out of control on the outside,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game. “I’d say let’s finish the book before we judge him. That’s one chapter.”
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Moving up: Ohio State
Last week’s ranking: No. 3
Arch Manning didn’t lay an egg all by himself in that game. Ohio State’s defense played a major role in keeping the star quarterback from building any real momentum.
Coaching turnover was a subject of some concern for the Buckeyes coming into the season, but defensive coordinator Matt Patricia’s first outing was an undisputed success.
Patricia’s unit held Texas to 5 of 14 on third down, stopped it twice in the red zone, created two fourth down stops inside the 10-yard line, and stuffed Manning from one yard out on a fourth and goal in a signature moment.
Ohio State’s defense held the Longhorns to just 79 total yards in the first half and kept Texas from scoring for the first three quarters, something it hadn’t done in a decade.
Offensively, the Buckeyes still left something to be desired in Julian Sayin’s first career start at quarterback, amassing 203 total yards and punting six times, going 3 of 12 on third down, and the ground attack mustered 2.3 yards per attempt. Work to do there.
Still, the Buckeyes secured their seventh straight win against opponents ranked in the top 10 at the time of the game:
Quite a feather in Ryan Day’s cap. Not bad for a coach that a vocal minority in Buckeye Country were trying to run out of town not long ago.
Now of course, the question arises, do the Buckeyes jump over No. 2 Penn State and take over the No. 1 position in the Week 2 rankings?
The argument is there: Ohio State did beat the No. 1 team in the nation, while the Nittany Lions merely beat up on a bad Nevada team that won seven combined games the last three years.
Expect the Buckeyes to move into the No. 2 position in next week’s AP top 25 rankings, behind the team that looks like their main obstacle in the Big Ten title picture.
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Moving up: Penn State
Last week’s ranking: No. 2
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the new No. 1 team in college football. At least, we think.
Sure, the Nittany Lions didn’t have to work too hard to get past hapless Nevada, but the win, combined with Texas’ loss in Columbus, could be easy arithmetic for AP top 25 voters.
Those voters were high on Penn State to begin with, giving it 23 of their first-place votes, just two shy of Texas, so it was a pretty close call at No. 1 to begin with.
That could be enough to keep most of the pollsters from leapfrogging the Buckeyes over the Nittany Lions, but some will definitely say the No. 3 team beating the No. 1 team is enough to be No. 1.
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Moving down: Alabama
Last week’s ranking: No. 8
Nick Saban wasn’t there to save them, as Tommy Castellanos might say.
As he did say earlier this offseason, when the Florida State quarterback first said, then doubled down on, then tripled down on, his remarks that Alabama just isn’t what it used to be after the coaching swap from Saban to Kalen DeBoer.
And after watching the Seminoles genuinely out-fight the Crimson Tide in the trenches in a 31-17 result, it’s clear the quarterback was right.
Alabama was a 13.5 point favorite in this game, going against a Florida State squad that won just two games a year ago. Instead, it lost a season opener for the first time since 2001, and DeBoer finds himself under the very kind of early pressure he hoped to avoid after a nine-win debut last season.
Saban was 158-6 as a double-digit favorite at Alabama, and now DeBoer has lost four games in that situation in 11 attempts as his successor, and he’s lost four games to unranked opponents in 14 tries, compared to Saban’s 4 losses to unranked teams in 230 outings.
Alabama is 4-5 against Power Four opponents dating back to the Vanderbilt loss last season, and has been held to 17 points or fewer in its last four of such losses
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Moving up: LSU
Last week’s ranking: No. 8
Finally, it happened. Brian Kelly won the first game of a season for the first time in his tenure at LSU, and the school won its first Week 1 game since 2019, when it last won the national championship.
Lee Corso did pick this team to go all the way, too…
For a game that was billed as a clash of elite quarterbacks, it was LSU’s defense that did much of the heavy lifting in a 17-10 win over No. 4 Clemson in primetime.
It was that unit that held Cade Klubnik to just 19 completions against 38 attempts for 230 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception.
Late in the game, with under five minutes left, Klubnik got the ball back with a chance to tie, but couldn’t get a first down in the face of LSU’s expert pass rush.
Its run stop was equally potent, holding Clemson’s ground attack to just 31 total yards and a paltry 1.6 yards per carry on the night.
AP voters could propel LSU into the top five of the rankings after the Texas loss and depending on what happens when Notre Dame plays at Miami on Sunday.
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Moving down: Clemson
Last week’s ranking: No. 4
Winning games at home against highly-ranked SEC opposition is the kind of metric the College Football Playoff selectors place a lot of stock in when creating the field.
Being held to 10 points on your home turf when you’ve been advertised as one of the most dynamic offenses in the country is not a good early sign for Clemson.
But the Tigers’ front line defense held its own against Garrett Nussmeier and LSU’s vertical attack, forcing two fumbles from wide receivers. Until it couldn’t hold anymore.
Clemson had three chances to score after surrendering what became the final lead to LSU, turning the ball over on downs and going three-and-out, and Klubnik succumbed to LSU’s defense again, when Harold Perkins pressured him on the final fourth down.
Clemson will drop in the Week 2 rankings, but potentially not outside the top 10.
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