College Football Rankings 2016: Projected AP Top 25 after Week 3

Each week, right after the late games, we will project how the AP Top 25 will look on Sunday. Here’s our hypothesis for Week 3.

After what was supposed to be a boring Week 2, college football fans were greeted by a weekend in which each of the top three teams in the AP Top 25 played true road games against fellow Top 25 opposition. There was plenty of opportunity for upsets, and we certainly are likely to see some significant shuffling when the new poll is released on Sunday.

Three teams will probably drop out from last week’s Top 25, and we are bound to see the return of a couple of teams that fell out over the first two weeks as well as others that have been perfect through the first quarter of the regular season. Here is our guess on how the hierarchy will look when the pollsters have all submitted their ballots and the Associated Press has tallied the results.

The Crimson Tide held off a late comeback attempt by Ole Miss to move to 3-0 on Saturday, and the defending College Football Playoff national champions will hold on to the top spot in the AP Top 25 after knocking off a top-20 opponent on the road. Nick Saban’s survived, but it showed itself vulnerable to a good passing game after Chad Kelly lit the Alabama secondary up for 421 yards and three touchdowns. Two Tide players, quarterback Jalen Hurts and running back Damien Harris, eclipsed the Rebels’ total rushing yards by themselves en route to the solid start to SEC play.

After a torrid start to the season that included a neutral-site game against USC and a home opener against defending Conference USA champ Western Kentucky, Alabama gets something of a breather for the rest of September. Kent State and Kentucky come to Tuscaloosa over the next two Saturdays before the Tide take back to the road for a showdown at Arkansas on October 8.