College football top 25 ballot: Our rankings and where Penn State landed after Week 9

Week 9 of the 2024 college football season is in the books, and the updated Associated Press top 25 poll will be out Sunday afternoon.

As an AP voter this season, I’ll be sharing my top 25 ballot week by week and giving you a peek behind the curtain as to my thought process.

Here’s my Week 8 AP top 25 ballot after Penn State-Wisconsin, LSU-Texas A&M and more.

(Previous rankings on last week’s ballot are in parentheses.)

Dropped: Missouri (20), Vanderbilt (25)

25. Tulane (NR)

24. Navy (24)

23. Colorado (NR)

22. Illinois (19)

21. Army (23)

I’ve long looked at Missouri as frauds. And while Brady Cook playing through injury and ultimately exiting the game is unfortunate, the Tigers don’t have the same spark they did last year. That was evident in their 34-0 loss at Alabama. Vanderbilt also drops out because it’s too early in the season to be ranking three-loss teams. But I still love Diego Pavia.

Navy and Illinois ran into buzzsaws against Notre Dame and Oregon. They were simply overmatched. But I still think both are worthy of being in the top 25, and there aren’t many teams making strong cases to get in.

Two teams with compelling cases? Colorado and Tulane. The Green Wave are 6-2 with losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma. Five straight wins have them in the thick of the AAC race. Colorado is also 6-2. Shedeur Sanders is cooking, and Travis Hunter is making his case to be in New York for the Heisman ceremony. Deion Sanders’ Buffs are dangerous.

20. SMU (22)

19. Ole Miss (21)

18. LSU (9)

17. Boise State (18)

16. Kansas State (16)

LSU fell apart in the second half at Texas A&M but stays ahead of Ole Miss thanks to the Tigers’ head-to-head win. LSU-Alabama in a couple weeks is a CFP elimination game.

In a battle between Mountain West favorites and playoff contenders, Boise State survived at UNLV. Ashton Jeanty looked somewhat human, but I don’t know how many of those games we’re going to get moving forward. The Broncos remain my pick for the G5′s CFP berth.

15. Alabama (15)

14. Pitt (17)

13. Iowa State (11)

12. Clemson (8)

11. Tennessee (7)

Pitt deserves a lot of credit. No one expected the Panthers to be undefeated at this point in the season, not even the most optimistic Pitt fan. Pat Narduzzi’s swarming defense picked off Syracuse QB Kyle McCord five times, including three pick-sixes in a 41-13 win. Pitt plays SMU next Saturday in a matchup between unexpected ACC championship contenders.

Tennessee, Clemson and Iowa State, which were idle, fall through no fault of their own. There were just teams that played this week that I thought earned a bump up. Among the Big 12 unbeatens, I gave the nod to BYU over Iowa State after an emphatic win at UCF — a team the Cyclones struggled with.

10. BYU (12)

9. Texas A&M (14)

8. Notre Dame (13)

7. Indiana (10)

6. Ohio State (4)

Texas A&M-LSU was going on during the Penn State game, so I couldn’t watch it live. Looking back, I came away impressed with the second-half performance from QB Marcel Reed. Some might vault Texas A&M even higher, and I get it. But the Irish clipped the Aggies in College Station to open the season and had an impressive, blowout win over Navy. Notre Dame has bounced back nicely from the Northern Illinois upset and is rounding into CFP form.

I knocked Ohio State a little bit for how it looked against Nebraska coming out of the bye week. The offense never really got going and needed a Dylan Raiola pick late to avoid the upset as a 25-point favorite. But make no mistake: the Buckeyes will still be a handful next week for the Nittany Lions.

Oh, and Indiana is a wagon at 8-0. Last week, the Hoosiers put 56 points on a Nebraska defense that Ohio State just struggled against. This week, they beat Washington comfortably without star QB Kurtis Rourke. Can’t be said enough: hell of a job by Curt Cignetti.

5. Texas (5)

4. Miami (6)

3. Georgia (3)

2. Penn State (2)

1. Oregon (1)

Miami slides into Ohio State’s spot at No. 4. Cam Ward and the Canes keep chugging along, outclassing Florida State in a 36-14 win. That offense is lethal. And looking at the rest of the schedule, an undefeated regular season is more than attainable for Miami.

Texas holds firm at No. 5. Quinn Ewers was dealing early, and Vanderbilt scored late. Georgia was idle, and Oregon smoked Illinois.

And lastly, I agree with James Franklin. Winning on the road at Wisconsin without Drew Allar in the second half was “gutsy” by Penn State. The Nittany Lions have been tested in different ways throughout this season, and they’ve stood up to every challenge. Credit to them. They’ll need the same mentality against the Buckeyes — with or without Allar at quarterback.

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