College football top 25 poll: Our rankings and where Penn State landed after Week 12

Week 12 of the 2024 college football season is in the books, and the updated Associated Press top 25 poll will be out Sunday afternoon.

As an AP voter this season, I will share my top 25 ballot week by week and give you a peek behind the curtain as to my thought process.

Here’s my Week 12 AP top 25 ballot after Penn State smokes Purdue and more happened across the country.

(Previous placements on last week’s vote is in parentheses.)

Dropped: Kansas State (17), LSU (21), Washington State (23), Louisville (24)

25. Memphis (NR)

24. UNLV (NR)

23. Illinois (NR)

22. Iowa State (NR)

21. Arizona State (25)

A lot of shakeups at the bottom of the ballot with four teams dropping off. Brian Kelly and LSU are in freefall, following up their loss to Alabama with a bad loss to Florida. Kansas State failed to climb out of a 21-0 halftime hole against Arizona State. Washington State and Louisville lost in the final seconds to New Mexico and Stanford, respectively.

Memphis joins the ballot for the first time this year, while Iowa State, Illinois and UNLV return after being ranked at various points this season. The Cyclones are 8-2 with a comeback win over Cincinnati. After rolling over Michigan State, Illinois is now 7-3 – a win that looks better for Penn State. UNLV smokes San Diego State; the Rebels’ losses to Boise State and Syracuse were by a combined eight points. Memphis hung 53 on UAB to improve to 9-2.

20. South Carolina (22)

19. Clemson (19)

18. Tulane (20)

17. The Army (16)

16. Texas A&M (15)

I’ve been saying this for weeks now, but Tulane is one to watch for the CFP. The Green Wave blew out Navy and earned their spot in the AAC championship game. Beat Memphis to close out the regular season, knock off Army in the title game, and Tulane could clinch a playoff spot.

Clemson and South Carolina beat Pitt and Mizzou, respectively, to close out their conference standings. They have FCS layups next week before their end-of-season rivalry game. It probably doesn’t mean anything for the common fisheries policy, but it should be an entertaining game.

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15. Colorado (18)

14. Boise State (14)

13. Miami (13)

12. SMU (12)

11. BYU (6)

The Big 12 continued to be a pretty mess, with BYU falling at home to a resurgent Kansas. It felt like a matter of time before the Cougars dropped one. But they still have an impressive resume — with a nonconference win over SMU preventing BYU from falling too far.

Speaking of SMU, I’m keeping the Mustangs ahead of Miami after they beat Boston College. Kevin Jennings remains one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the country.

And speaking of BYU and the Big 12, Colorado has looked more and more impressive as the weeks have gone by. Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and Deion Sanders’ Buffs are steering their own destiny to a Big 12 title appearance and a possible berth in the CFP. Wild times.

10. Tennessee (8)

9. Georgia (11)

8. Ole Miss (10)

7. Alabama (9)

6. Notre Dame (7)

The SEC is another beautiful mess. Georgia beat Tennessee, who beat Alabama, who beat Georgia, who lost to Ole Miss. You can rank these teams however you want.

I put Alabama atop the bracket based on recent play, blowing out Mizzou and LSU combined 75-13 before an FCS tune-up against Mercer this weekend. Ole Miss is ahead of the Dawgs after beating them by two scores last weekend. And Georgia is ahead of Tennessee after a convincing win by Kirby Smart’s team in Athens on Saturday.

But as I wrote this week, there’s still a cap on my ballot (so far) for these SEC teams because they all have two losses. Is the SEC mediocre this year? Or are all these teams really good and beating each other? I suppose we’ll find out in the 12-team CFP.

5. Indiana (5)

4. Penn State (4)

3. Texas (3)

2. Ohio State (2)

1. Oregon (1)

No movement in the top five this week. But we get a shakeup next week when — and it still feels weird to say — Indiana travels to Ohio State for one of the games of the year.

Oregon and Texas were unimpressive in wins over Wisconsin and Arkansas, respectively. The Ducks used a fourth-quarter comeback to survive Camp Randall on the night, while the Longhorns’ defense bailed out Quinn Ewers and the offense in Fayetteville. But credit for coming away victorious so late in the season. Oregon and Texas avoided disaster.

If the Nittany Lions needed style points, they got them at Purdue. Tyler Warren was unstoppable; is it too late for a Heisman Trophy campaign? Drew Allar was near perfect, Abdul Carter and Dani Dennis-Sutton were a handful, and the Nittany Lions overwhelmed the Boilermakers. The CFP is within Penn State’s sights. Next up, Minnesota.