Week 2 is where September rankings started getting mean.
Ohio State had Texas buried 23-3 entering the fourth quarter and somehow lost. Oregon went to Oklahoma State as a 22-point favorite and lost to a program that had dropped 21 straight games against FBS teams. Michigan spent all week getting laughed at for needing a second-chance Hail Mary against Western Michigan, then turned around and beat Oklahoma. Washington barely survived Utah State 16-14 and gets booted from my Top 25 entirely.
So yeah.. we have some movement.
The college football top 25 after Week 2 starts with Georgia taking over No. 1, LSU moving to No. 2 and Notre Dame sitting at No. 3. Texas owns the biggest win of the weekend and only gets to No. 5, which is probably going to piss some people off, but the first three quarters against Ohio State still happened. These rankings are two weeks of football, not a list of who had the coolest Saturday night.
Ohio State falls six spots. Oregon falls seven. Oklahoma gets absolutely LAUNCHED from No. 10 to No. 20. Michigan replaces Washington at the bottom.
September is finally doing what September does best.. ruining everything we thought we knew seven days ago.
College Football Top 25 After Week 2: The Full Rankings
25. Michigan
Well.. THAT looked a little more like Michigan.
A week after needing an extra second and a second Hail Mary attempt to escape Western Michigan 13-12, the Wolverines beat No. 11 Oklahoma 17-10. The offense still isn’t exactly giving 2019 LSU vibes, but Bryce Underwood ripped off a 38-yard touchdown run and Michigan’s defense made the biggest play of the afternoon when an interception set up Jordan Marshall’s go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. Going from barely surviving Western Michigan to beating a ranked Oklahoma team is enough to get Michigan back into my Top 25.
Now do it again without requiring everybody to check whether the clock operator has money on the game.
24. Pitt
Week 1 was Mason Heintschel throwing seven touchdown passes. Week 2 was Pitt playing football inside a washing machine and winning 12-7 over UCF.
Honestly, that’s probably more useful for figuring out what Pitt is. Heintschel threw for 212 yards with no touchdowns in the steady rain, so the offense wasn’t bailing anybody out this time. The defense had to win the game, and it did. UCF managed 206 total yards and only 20 on the ground while Pitt finished the Knights’ final possession with a fourth-down sack. The Panthers are 2-0 after winning two completely different kinds of football games, which is enough to move them up one spot.
23. Virginia
Virginia has done basically everything you could ask through two games. The Cavaliers opened by beating NC State 34-8, then followed it by obliterating Norfolk State 59-3 behind three first-quarter touchdown passes from Beau Pribula.
Norfolk State obviously isn’t moving Virginia up because I suddenly think Michael Vick’s new program is a playoff measuring stick. It’s the combination. Virginia already had the Power Four win, then treated the team it was supposed to destroy like a team it was supposed to destroy. No drama, no weird fourth quarter, no spending halftime wondering why the favorite has 10 points. Virginia is 2-0 and gets another small bump.
22. Missouri
Kansas actually made Missouri work for this one, which finally gave us something more useful than the Tigers beating Arkansas-Pine Bluff into dust.
The Border War was tied 14-14 before Missouri took control, helped by back-to-back Kansas turnovers early in the second half. Austin Simmons threw for 292 yards and three touchdowns, Jamal Roberts ran for 125 and Missouri left Lawrence with a 38-21 rivalry win. Simmons looked great when nothing was expected of him in Week 1, then looked good again when the game actually had some pressure attached to it. Missouri stays at No. 22, but there’s a lot more substance behind the ranking now.
21. Louisville
Louisville stays at No. 21, and the Cardinals are still probably better than their 1-1 record looks.
They lost 41-38 to Ole Miss on a walk-off field goal in Week 1, then responded by hanging 59 on Villanova. Lincoln Kienholz threw for 332 yards and two touchdowns, ran for two more and helped Louisville pile up 635 yards of offense. Villanova isn’t enough to erase the loss or launch Louisville up the rankings, but the offense we saw against Ole Miss clearly wasn’t some one-night thing either.
Kienholz looks good. Louisville can score. The Cardinals still look like a team that belongs in the ACC race, so there’s no reason to move them just because a bunch of teams around them also won.
20. Oklahoma
From No. 10 to No. 20.
Oklahoma had a chance to make one of the loudest statements of Week 2 because Michigan looked AWFUL in its opener. Instead, the Sooners went to Ann Arbor and scored 10 points in a 17-10 loss. That defense still did enough to win a road game against a ranked-caliber opponent, but the offense never took advantage of it.
The 51-0 demolition of UTEP suddenly means a whole lot less when the next opponent punches back and you cannot score. Oklahoma isn’t falling out of the Top 25 over one road loss, especially when that loss came by seven at Michigan, but the No. 10 ranking was built partly on the idea that the Week 1 dominance might carry into real competition.
It didn’t. Ten spots feels deserved.
19. Iowa
Of COURSE Iowa and Iowa State ended 16-13 on a field goal with 15 seconds left. There was simply no other acceptable ending.
Iowa fell behind 10-0, dragged the game back into the mud and eventually let Caden Buhr win it from 42 yards. The Hawkeyes only finished with 284 yards, so the 40-point Week 1 offensive explosion can safely be returned to the same mysterious place Iowa stores offense between sightings. But they’re 2-0, they reclaimed the Cy-Hawk Trophy and they found a way to win a tight rivalry game where absolutely nothing came easy.
That feels extremely Iowa. Up one spot.
18. Tennessee
Tennessee’s Week 1 demolition of Furman introduced Faizon Brandon. The Georgia Tech game showed the Vols don’t need their true freshman quarterback to put on a superhero cape every week.
Brandon only threw for 148 yards, but Tennessee ran the ball, played defense and handled Georgia Tech 45-24 on the road. DeSean Bishop went for 147 yards and two touchdowns, while the defense added a pick-six and intercepted Alberto Mendoza twice. That’s a much healthier formula for a team starting a true freshman than asking him to create five touchdowns every Saturday.
Tennessee is 2-0, Brandon still looks promising and now the Vols have a real road win on the board.
17. Texas Tech
Texas Tech finally got punched in the mouth a little bit and responded.
The Red Raiders trailed Oregon State 24-21 in the fourth quarter before Will Hammond found Coy Eakin for the go-ahead touchdown, and Tech eventually escaped Corvallis with a 35-24 win. J’Koby Williams ran for 116 yards, and the offense did enough late after the defense looked considerably more human than it did against Abilene Christian.
That actually makes Texas Tech a little easier to trust. Week 1 showed what happens when the defense controls everything. Week 2 showed they can be uncomfortable on the road, trail in the fourth quarter and still finish the job.
16. Utah
Utah finally got the opponent I wanted to see after the Utes spent Week 1 flattening Idaho.
Arkansas came to Rice-Eccles and got flattened too.
Utah won 43-10, and that score does a lot more for me than the 66-14 opener because this was a Power Four opponent walking into the exact kind of game that was supposed to tell us whether Utah’s Week 1 dominance meant anything. Apparently it did. The Utes have now scored 109 points in two games and haven’t really been threatened in either one.
There are teams with flashier names sitting around them. Utah looks like Utah again, which is usually terrible news for somebody in November.
15. Oregon
This is one of the worst losses anybody in these rankings is going to take all season.
Oklahoma State entered Saturday having lost 12 straight games overall and 21 straight against FBS opponents. Tulsa had just beaten the Cowboys 24-10. Oregon was ranked sixth in the AP poll and favored by more than three touchdowns.
Then Drew Mestemaker threw for 317 yards, ran for another 109 and Oklahoma State beat Oregon 39-31.
What the hell are we supposed to do with that?
Oregon stays at No. 15 because the Ducks still have a talented roster and the Week 1 win over Boise State means something, but this is exactly why rankings should punish bad losses. If Oregon is actually one of the best teams in America, losing to THAT Oklahoma State team cannot happen. Seven spots is plenty of mercy.
14. BYU
BYU’s first game was a 63-7 murder scene. Arizona finally made the Cougars play real football.
BYU trailed 17-14 at halftime before completely shutting Arizona out in the second half and winning 28-17. Bear Bachmeier accounted for all four touchdowns, throwing for 217 yards and three scores while adding another on the ground. That’s the kind of game I wanted after Week 1 because destroying an overmatched team tells you almost nothing about what happens when a game gets uncomfortable.
Arizona made BYU adjust. BYU adjusted. The Cougars are 2-0 and move up two spots.
13. Penn State
Penn State also moves up two spots, although that has as much to do with teams above them falling apart as anything the Nittany Lions did.
Temple had Penn State stuck in a 3-3 game deep into the second quarter, and the Nittany Lions wasted multiple early red-zone opportunities before eventually settling in and winning 27-9. Rocco Becht was good again with 268 yards and three touchdowns, so nobody needs to smash the panic button. There just hasn’t been a performance yet that makes me want to launch Penn State toward the top 10 either.
Marshall and Temple. Two comfortable wins. Solid football. Thirteen feels about right.
12. SMU
Kevin Jennings played one half against UC Davis and apparently decided that was enough work for the day.
He threw for 337 yards and FIVE touchdowns before halftime as SMU built a 42-0 lead, and the Mustangs eventually won 56-10. It got so hot and so lopsided that the teams agreed to shorten the second half to a pair of 12-minute quarters.
The opponent obviously matters, but SMU’s first two games fit together pretty nicely. Week 1 showed the Mustangs could survive a sloppy road game at Florida State despite four turnovers. Week 2 showed what the offense looks like when it stops handing the other team presents.
Pretty damn good.
11. USC
USC is 3-0 and Jayden Maiava keeps putting up numbers.
Maiava threw five touchdown passes in a 49-30 win over Louisiana, giving USC another huge offensive day after scoring 42 and 39 in its first two games. The part keeping the Trojans outside my top 10 is the other side. Louisiana scored 30, ran the ball effectively and hung around long enough that this never felt like the same complete beatdown USC put on Fresno State.
Nobody is worried about whether Lincoln Riley can find offense. That question was solved approximately 600 quarterbacks ago. If the defense we saw against Fresno State becomes the normal version, USC will fly up this list. Thirty points to Louisiana makes me wait another week.
10. Alabama
Alabama finally got punched in the face, and I liked the response.
The Crimson Tide trailed Kentucky 17-13 at halftime after Keelon Russell threw two interceptions. His first SEC road start looked VERY much like a freshman quarterback playing his first SEC road start. Then Alabama came out after halftime and scored 32 unanswered points while the defense completely shut Kentucky down.
Russell wasn’t great, but Alabama didn’t need him to magically turn into a finished product. The defense took over, the run game helped settle things down and a potentially ugly afternoon turned into a 45-17 win. That’s a more useful result than beating East Carolina by 38 because we finally saw Alabama have something go wrong.
They handled it.
9. Ole Miss
Ole Miss has probably had the best two-game start of anybody sitting outside my top five.
The Rebels already had the 41-38 win over Louisville, then came back and handled Charlotte 41-9 without any post-upset hangover nonsense. Trinidad Chambliss completed 23 of 26 passes for 225 yards and two touchdowns, and Ole Miss scored on five of its six first-half possessions.
Charlotte doesn’t move Ole Miss into the top 10 by itself. Louisville is the reason they’re here. Charlotte just confirmed that Pete Golding’s team can follow an emotional win by taking care of business against somebody it should beat.
And now Lane Kiffin brings LSU back to Oxford. Oh buddy.
8. Texas A&M
Arizona State hung around long enough to make Texas A&M earn this one. Then the Aggies turned the fourth quarter into a crime scene.
A&M led by only four before scoring 24 points in the fourth and pulling away for a 48-20 win. Marcel Reed threw three touchdown passes, and the defense scored twice in the final quarter to turn what had been a competitive game into a blowout.
That’s a much better reason to believe in A&M than the 50-0 demolition of Missouri State. Arizona State could actually fight back, and the Aggies eventually overwhelmed them anyway. The talent has never been the question in College Station. Watching all of it show up at the same time is usually the part everybody waits for.
So far, so good.
7. Ohio State
Ohio State falls from No. 1 to No. 7 because blowing a 23-3 fourth-quarter lead has to hurt. A LOT.
The annoying part is that Ohio State spent three quarters looking like the better team at Texas. Julian Sayin threw for 278 yards, Jeremiah Smith had 164 receiving yards and a touchdown, and the Buckeyes had Arch Manning and the Texas offense completely miserable for most of the night.
Then they blew it.
Texas scored three fourth-quarter touchdowns, Ohio State missed a chance to extend the lead late and Hollywood Smothers scored the winner with 25 seconds left. The whole thing was an all-time collapse, and I already wrote an entire article about why Ryan Day should be left in Austin after it.
But the first three quarters still matter when ranking the actual football team. Ohio State showed it is talented enough to dominate a national-title contender on the road. It also showed it can find a way to lose after doing the hard part.
No. 7 feels like the proper punishment.
6. Indiana
THIS is what Indiana was supposed to do to an overmatched team.
Week 1 was weird because the defending national champions beat North Texas 52-16 while somehow getting outgained. Howard got the correction. Indiana won 55-0, held Howard to 57 total yards and ran for 301. The Hoosiers were up 41-0 at halftime and basically spent the entire afternoon removing every annoying little question created by the opener.
Howard isn’t going to tell us whether Indiana can repeat as national champion. It did tell us the strange Week 1 defensive performance didn’t immediately become a trend.
The champs are 2-0 and still sitting right outside my top five.
5. Texas
Texas owns the best win of Week 2. I’m still putting the Longhorns fifth.
They trailed Ohio State 23-3 entering the fourth quarter, then Arch Manning and the offense finally woke up and ripped off three touchdowns to win 24-23. Hollywood Smothers scored the winner with 25 seconds left, and according to Sportradar, the 20-point rally was the largest fourth-quarter comeback ever in a win over an AP No. 1 team.
That is an AWESOME win.
It also came after Ohio State controlled the game for three quarters. Texas turned the ball over on its first two possessions and went into halftime down 20-3. The comeback proves a ton about the Longhorns because plenty of teams fold right there. They didn’t. But Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame and Miami have played cleaner football across the whole start of the season.
If Texas plays four quarters like it played the fourth Saturday night, No. 5 won’t last long.
4. Miami
Miami has played Stanford and Florida A&M, so yes, the competition disclaimer is sitting right there.
The Hurricanes have also scored 122 points in two games.
Miami beat Florida A&M 77-7, set a school record with 856 total yards and had 42 first downs. Darian Mensah completed 14 of 15 passes for 252 yards and three touchdowns after throwing for 401 and five scores against Stanford. Malachi Toney followed his ridiculous 234-yard opener with another 96 yards and a touchdown.
Eventually somebody is going to make Miami play an actual four-quarter football game. Until then, all we can judge is what they’re doing with the teams in front of them.
They’re vaporizing them.
3. Notre Dame
Notre Dame took 14 seconds to score against Rice.
That feels a little disrespectful.
Boubacar Traore returned a fumble for a touchdown on Rice’s second play, C.J. Carr threw four touchdown passes and Notre Dame led 42-0 at halftime before winning 52-0. Rice finished with only 128 yards, and the Irish forced four turnovers.
That comes one week after Notre Dame beat Wisconsin 41-13 at Lambeau. There was some early mess in that game before the Irish pulled away, but two weeks in we already have one convincing Power Four win and one complete demolition of an inferior opponent. Carr looks comfortable, the defense looks nasty and Notre Dame hasn’t given me a reason to move them anywhere but up.
2. LSU
LSU spent the first half against Louisiana Tech trying REALLY hard to make me regret this ranking.
The Tigers led only 10-7 at halftime, and Sam Leavitt threw three interceptions. A week after LSU absolutely destroyed Clemson, this looked like the classic Saturday where everybody spends halftime asking what the hell happened to the team they watched seven days ago.
Then LSU scored 35 points after halftime and won 45-14. Leavitt made up for the interceptions with three rushing touchdowns, while the defense completely smothered Louisiana Tech for 140 total yards, seven sacks and three takeaways.
The Clemson win still carries enormous weight for me. LSU has already gone out and beaten a ranked opponent 51-10. One ugly offensive half doesn’t erase that, especially when the defense never stopped playing.
It does make No. 1 an easier call.
1. Georgia
Georgia has scored 133 points through two games, and Gunner Stockton has left BOTH of them in the second quarter.
Good grief.
The Bulldogs followed their 63-3 opener by beating Western Kentucky 70-20. Stockton completed 13 of 16 passes for 234 yards and five touchdowns, tying a Georgia record, and every touchdown went to a different receiver. Georgia led 49-0 in the first half before Kirby Smart started emptying the bench again.
Here’s the only real argument against Georgia at No. 1: they haven’t played anybody good yet. Texas has Ohio State. LSU has Clemson. Notre Dame has Wisconsin. Georgia has Tennessee State and Western Kentucky.
Fair.
But this ranking isn’t résumé-only, especially after two weeks. Georgia came into the year as one of the most talented teams in America, and through two games the Bulldogs have looked exactly like the machine we expected. Stockton has eight touchdown passes without an interception, the offense is scoring basically whenever it feels like it and nobody has made Georgia sweat for five consecutive minutes.
Arkansas is next, so the schedule finally starts giving us better information.
