Saturday’s opponent, Stanford, rose one spot to No. 6 thanks to their last-second win over Notre Dame.
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Having one is North Carolina’s only shot at the top four, and that shot would appear to be long. The Irish now sit at No. 8 in the rankings.
“The committee debated long and hard about the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams”, Long said.
College Football Playoff Poll for November 24, 2015.
This means that is Alabama beats Florida in the SEC Championship game they are nearly assured a spot in the playoff.
Big 12 Champion Oklahoma is in, even without an actual conference championship game. The highest ranked conference champion from the Group of 5 conferences (American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt) also will receive a spot.
Clemson retained the top spot this week in spite of a lackluster win over woeful SC. If one or both teams lose, then we have some chaos.
The final rankings will be released Sunday after the conference championship games. While the conference does not have an official championship game the 11-1 Sooners lay claim to the conference uncontested. That’s how all of this works. It may not consider North Carolina to be one of the four best teams in the country. Stanford (10-2) 8. Notre Dame (10-2) 9. If two-loss Stanford has a convincing victory over Southern California in the Pac-12 championship game, even more drama might ensue.
– If Stanford were to make the playoff, the Pac-12 rep would likely be OR, ranked No. 16. The CFP committee has talked about its favoring of conference champions in their selection of teams to the playoff and a year ago all four teams who made the playoffs were conference champions.
Not to mention I’d have to jump them over 1-loss Ohio State and either 1-loss Clemson/2-loss UNC, and 1-loss Iowa/2-loss Michigan State and I don’t feel real great about that either.
The Hawkeyes-Spartans game is a victor is in game, loser is out. Again, if the Tigers beat but struggle against the Tar Heels, the Tide will look much stronger to the committee.
Who beats a Bill Snyder-coached Wildcat team by 55 in Manhattan, an Art Briles band of Bears by 10 on the Brazos and the rock’em, sock’em not-your-grandfather’s Cowboys by 35 at Boone Pickens Stadium?
The Nebraska loss seemed to dispel any chances for Mark Dantonio’s team, but this squad turned it around to contain Ohio State’s offensive arsenal on the road.
Ohio State and North Carolina should have settled this: The Buckeyes and Tar Heels should have played by now.
That’s no good for the Tar Heels, obviously.
Alabama is expected to roll. Those teams will then participate in the sport’s playoff bracket in January. This would clear some space, also.
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Let’s look at the meteoric rise Oklahoma has been on to see if their ranking is justified. What has Oklahoma done recently to elevate them from a team that had a chance of making the playoffs to a virtual lock to be included in the final four?
