AP Top 25: Projecting where Auburn will be ranked Sunday

The Auburn football team fell one spot to No. 10 after beating Arkansas a week ago. That likely won’t happen Sunday when the AP Top 25 poll is released.

On Saturday, playing as 27-point favorites, Auburn didn’t play its best, but left Jordan-Hare Stadium with a 24-13 victory against Southern Miss. With Penn State and Stanford losing in front of them, it’s likely the Tigers will climb one or two spots in the poll, depending on how voters view the Nittany Lions after they allowed Ohio State a late score to beat them.

Auburn no longer faces a Top 25 this week when it travels to Mississippi State. When the season started, it was thought that this game would be a battle between SEC West teams either both or at least both hovering around the top 10. But the Bulldogs have lost two consecutive games.

Here’s a look at how we project the AP Top 25 poll to look when it comes out Sunday:

Projecting the AP Top 25

1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Clemson
4. Ohio State
5. LSU

No, Alabama hasn’t been tested and part of that is because it has only played one decent team and won’t play another decent one until Nov. 3 when it goes to LSU. But I think we all can agree that based on what we’ve seen through five weeks, Georgia, Clemson and Ohio State aren’t on the same level as Alabama. It really doesn’t even look close. The Buckeyes pulled off a huge come-from-behind win Saturday vs. Penn State. Yes, the same Penn State that needed overtime to beat Appalachian State. Clemson needed a late TD to rally past Syracuse.

6. Oklahoma
7. Notre Dame
8. Auburn
9. Washington
10. Penn State

Kyler Murray looks like him and the Sooners are going to be a problem for some team at some point between now and when the playoff begins. Notre Dame put together a formidable showing. Auburn creeps up because it won and two teams in front of it lost. Washington had a nice win vs. BYU and it’s hard to ding Penn State much, especially after Auburn and Washington didn’t drop much after losing to top-10 teams.

This also could play out this way: 8. Penn State, 9. Washington, 10. Auburn. That’s right. Remember when we said style points were important for the Tigers? Well, they aren’t getting any right now and Penn State (even in a loss) and Washington did Saturday night.

11. West Virginia
12. UCF
13. Michigan
14. Wisconsin
15. Miami
16. Kentucky
17. Stanford
18. Texas
19. Oregon
20. Michigan State
21. Colorado
22. Boise State
23. Oklahoma State
24. Syracuse
25. N.C. State

Look at Kentucky. Another week, another win. Some new faces this week. We’re going to go out on a limb with Syracuse. The Orange should have beaten Clemson at Clemson. Syracuse has a good team.