College Football Rankings 2020: Projected AP Top 25 for Week 6

Last week, when the AP Top 25 first allowed its voters to return Big Ten and Pac-12 teams to the rankings, Ohio State offered the most interesting test case of the bunch. The Buckeyes opened the year at No. 2 behind only Clemson, garnering 21 of a possible 62 first-place votes. This week, they were ranked No. 1 on four ballots — one more than Alabama received after clobbering Missouri — but they were also left entirely off the list by 11 voters.

45 of the 62 voters, though, had Ohio State among the top three teams in the country. Even though Ryan Day’s crew doesn’t take the field for another month, that opinion won’t likely change much among the vast majority of voters. Even if none of the 11 voters come around to naming the Buckeyes as one of the 25 best teams in the country before they actually take the field, there is little danger that Ohio State will fall out of the top 10.

They start off the 2020 campaign with back-to-back marquee games, first at home against Nebraska on October 24 and then a Halloween trip to Happy Valley to square off against Penn State. Before November rolls around, we’ll know whether Ohio State is a legitimate College Football Playoff contender this year.