The committee’s list is and will continue to be fluid. The committee chair Jeff Long tried to explain by OK St. was not top four as a few expected. One of these teams will more than likely get the third spot. Alabama did just knock off, quite impressively, an LSU Tigers team which was rolling over everyone. Memphis is just hanging on in the American Athletic Conference after falling to Navy, another candidate for that bowl spot, in its first loss of the season last week. Utah has fallen out of the national spotlight, but it’s still very much in the playoff conversation. Even if Ohio State slips up once in the regular season, there is a 50.6% chance Urban Meyer’s team is given an opportunity to defend its title. I think conference championships matter a whole lot to the selection committee, which last year’s Playoff field of champions made clear. Ohio State (9-0) remained at No. 3 with Notre Dame (8-1) moving in to the No. 4 position.
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The Predictalator uses current rosters and strength-of-schedule and efficiency-adjusted team and player stats (weighted slightly more toward recent games), to play every game 50,000 times before it’s actually played. Let’s look through the different scenarios that could occur by year’s end. Despite being ranked below the Irish now, the Hawkeyes could jump ahead of Notre Dame should they win out including the Big 10 Championship. I’m not saying Oklahoma State is truly a top-five team, but compare their schedule and resume with Baylor, their Big 12 counterpart. Baylor remains the league’s highest ranked team at No. 6, but if you assume the top three and the survivor of Notre Dame-Stanford wins out, you could be looking at a second consecutive year with no Big 12 team in the mix. “We still feel like they’re a strong team”. That’s kind of why they held their place. “Three teams lost ahead of them, so we felt they needed to move up”.
Notre Dame and Alabama have one loss. Somebody deserving will ultimately be left out. If the playoff was started today, Clemson would play Notre Dame in a rematch of the October 3 classic that Clemson won at Memorial Stadium, 24-22.
Alabama (8-1) jumped to No. 2 behind No. 1 Clemson (9-0). Although, the Huskers have no shot to make the College Football Playoff, they’ll have a real shot to alter the entire landscape of college football. Granted, playing (and rightfully beating) SMU won’t do too much, and with the success Willie T. has had in South Florida, Temple might be #22 next week with a win, too.
Baylor over Oklahoma State? After their loss to the Midshipmen, the Tigers settled in at No. 21.
The bolded and italicized numbers in the SOS, SOR and GC are the teams that rank in the Top 5 of that statistic.
Florida’s chances of making the Playoff may depend on how Notre Dame finishes 2015.
Compared to Week 10, Week 11’s schedule is considerably light. All four have at least seven wins, three have at least eight wins and three have one loss.
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For more on college football, follow Tom Davis on Twitter at Tom101010. Many Baylor fans feel they aren’t getting enough love, but Baylor still has yet to play a team with a winning record and the committee notices things like that.
