College Football Rankings 2019: Projected Top 25, Week 3 – LSU rising?

In Week 1, trendy preseason Big 12 contender Iowa State struggled to put away FCS Northern Iowa. The Cyclones fell behind 13-10 in the third quarter and needed a field goal in the final minute of regulation just to force overtime. From there, Iowa State needed three possessions to finally put down the scare from a Panthers team that knocked off the Cyclones as recently as 2016.

After surviving their triple-overtime scare against FCS Northern Iowa in their season opener, Matt Campbell’s team dropped four spots in the AP Top 25. In that regard, they were lucky that their near-defeat did not prove more costly.

With teams getting two weeks off over the course of the regular season in 2019, Iowa State got a much-needed chance to regroup with a bye in Week 2. They will need to study the film on what went wrong against the Panthers to make sure they do not bring these mistakes into the rest of their games.

Next week, the Cyclones return to the field to test if all the kinks have been ironed out of their gameplay. Iowa comes to Ames for the state rivalry matchup between the Hawkeyes and Cyclones. After losing to their rivals each of the past four years, Iowa State will hope to get the upper hand at home and remain in the AP Top 25 another week.