It looked like a relatively boring Week 4 slate of games. Instead, it was a weekend of chaos that will shuffle around the AP Top 25 in a major way.
Every week, there is the potential for the AP Top 25 to turn completely on its head. It doesn’t always happen that things go topsy-turvy in the rankings, but sometimes a weekend comes along that generates some chaos especially among teams near the bottom of the Top 25.
Often there will be a few openings for teams to climb up into the rankings. But rare are those weekends when there is a ton of churn and a large number of spaces for new schools. We will see as many as five new programs climbing over the cut line this week into the Top 25, thanks to upsets and losses by lower-ranked teams in games featuring a pair of ranked opponents.
We had one of the biggest upsets to date of the season this week, as No. 13 Virginia Tech went to Norfolk to face Old Dominion and left defeated after a 49-35 loss to the Monarchs. The defeat — coming against a team that had opened up 2018 with losses to Liberty, Florida International, and Charlotte — will almost certainly knock Virginia Tech completely out of the AP Top 25 this week.
That comes along with losses by Texas A&M and Boston College, the first a big loss on the road at No. 1 Alabama and the latter a non-conference loss in West Lafayette against Big Ten middleweight Purdue. With the trio of defeats, three new spots will open up in the poll this week.
Who will occupy those spots, and where might there be shakeups elsewhere in the rankings this week? Keep reading for our AP Top 25 projections following Week 4 action.