In South Florida, the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl is expected to host Clemson if the Tigers defeat North Carolina in the ACC Championship on Saturday night.
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Utah dropped to No. 24 in the College Football Playoff rankings, which is one spot lower than its previous ranking at No. 23.
Oklahoma could conceivably fall to No. 4 next week if Iowa or Michigan State wins the Big Ten in particularly impressive fashion.
Oklahoma, which was idle this week, surrendered its No. 3 spot in the final set of temporary rankings to Michigan State (12-1). The top two teams, Alabama and Clemson, won their conference title games, while No. 3 Oklahoma did not play.
Stanford (10-2) moved into the seventh spot after upsetting No. 8 Notre Dame last week.
If North Carolina wins, the committee would need to decide between the ACC champion Tar Heels, the potential two-loss Pac-12 champion Stanford Cardinal and one-loss Ohio State.
The only surprising thing was the Spartans jump over Oklahoma, but the committee has said in the past that it values conference championship titles when teams are close in every other aspect.
Alabama throttled Florida Saturday in the SEC title game in Atlanta. The Buckeyes (11-1) moved up with a resounding win at MI last week. I also know that if Clemson wins Saturday they are in no matter what, but in what world do you even consider putting Alabama over Clemson?
Maybe there’s a fourth in No. 4 Iowa, should the Hawkeyes fall to No. 5 Michigan State for their first loss. Florida State fell from No. 2 to No. 3 despite staying undefeated between the 11th and 12th weeks of the season.
Houston (11-1), which comes in at No. 19 this week, is the highest ranked team from the Group of 5. In that scenario – assuming Clemson remains atop the rankings – the Sooners would be matched with the team that crushed them 40-6 in last season’s Russell Athletic Bowl.
The final poll will be released Sunday morning, with pairings for the remaining four CFP access bowls revealed later that afternoon. With Michigan State in the final four, eight teams were featured in this year’s top four as well.
Having one is North Carolina’s only shot at the top four, and that shot would appear to be long.
“We’ll just play whoever we get put in front of us”, senior OU defensive end Charles Tapper said this week. The best four, in my opinion, are Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio State and Michigan State.
Next up for Stanford is the Pac-12 championship against #24 USC at Levi’s Stadium, where Stanford should enjoy home-field advantage.
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This is going to be a very exciting weekend of football as teams from all around the nation play for their conference titles.
