College Football Rankings 2018: Projected Top 25 after Week 7

Washington State moved up into the AP Top 25 this week despite sitting out on a bye week. The Cougars finally jumped up above the cut line thanks to an Oregon win over Washington, which pushes Washington State into a big jumbled four-way race alongside Stanford as well as the Ducks and Huskies.

Mike Leach’s team has benefitted from the work of Gardner Minshew, the graduate transfer from East Carolina who has been talked up in some quarters as a possible dark-horse Heisman candidate in 2018. Minshew is putting up the same sort of video-game stats you’d expect from a Leach-guided Air Raid offense, and he has helped the Cougars maintain status as a Pac-12 contender.

With their only loss a narrow 39-36 defeat against USC in Friday night #Pac12AfterDark action in Week 4, the Cougars are still a viable contender on the national scale if they keep winning. They return to the field next week with a home game against the Ducks in Pullman that will serve as an elimination game in the division.