When you play with fire too many times, you’re bound to get burned eventually. That’s a lesson the Miami Hurricanes learned Saturday afternoon and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets taught them the hard way with an upset win inside Bobby Dodd.

Georgia Tech was a horror show for Mario Cristobal and Miami last season with the infamous decision not to take a knee. There was no such blunder this time, but the result was the same with the Hurricanes falling to an unranked Georgia Tech team. However, it is much more important in the 2024 season, as this is Miami’s first loss of the season and will drop them from No. 4 in the AP College Football Top 25.

How far will they fall? With this game and more, let’s take a look at how the projected AP Top 25 will look after the first few games.

1. Oregon ducks
2. Ohio State Buckeyes
3. Georgia Bulldogs
4. Texas Longhorns
5. Penn State Nittany Lions
6. Tennessee Volunteers
7. Indiana Hoosiers
8. BYU Cougars
9. The Miami Hurricanes
10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
11. Alabama Crimson Tide
12. Boise State Broncos
13. SMU Mustangs
14. LSU Tigers
15. Texas A&M Aggies
16. Ole Miss Rebels
17. The Iowa State Cyclones
18. Army of the Black Knights
19. Clemson Tigers
20. Washington state cougar
21. Colorado buffalo
22. Kansas Wildcats
23. Pittsburgh Panthers
24. Vanderbilt Commodores
25. Louisville Cardinals

Miami should certainly fall behind undefeated Indiana and BYU after this loss and come dangerously close to falling outside the Top 10. After all, where is the quality win for the Hurricanes really? The best win is over Louisville, but they are few and far between. Given Notre Dame’s win over Texas A&M, you could even make a case for the Irish to be over them, though I think the Northern Illinois loss will continue to hurt them.

Now let’s take a look at the rest of the late action that happened in the opening window.

Sure, Billy Napier and the Florida Gators were at their third straight quarterback Saturday in their visit to Austin, but it was a statement game from the Texas Longhorns, a bigger statement than even the final score of 49- 17.

Quinn Ewers gave credence to the idea that ahead of the bye he could still be affected by the oblique injury that has sidelined him for several weeks. He came out firing against this Gators defense, going 19 of 27 for 333 yards and five touchdowns — and that was before Arch Manning finally wrote him for most of the fourth quarter.

Not surprisingly, the Texas defense also had clamps on the Florida offense while the Gators were shorthanded, at least until garbage time. Still, this was a much-needed win for the Longhorns, and one that moves them up the rankings even stronger after Miami’s loss to them.

Not that we ever really thought the Columbus outcome was in doubt, but the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes took care of business with emphasis against an ailing Purdue Boilermakers team that looked nothing like the Spoilermakers of old.

Will Howard had a nice day with 260 yards and three scores while adding one on the ground, but the Buckeyes offense got another big game from TreVeyon Henderson, who had 85 yards and a touchdown only six ports away. The real star, however, was Ohio State’s defense. Even against Purdue, limiting a team to just 206 yards of total offense and forcing two turnovers made things work on that side of the ball.