While it all might be clear-cut to everyone else, and the top four might seem relatively obvious, the College Football Playoff committee still fights it out each and every week putting together the top 25. Michigan State handled Penn State’s struggling offense easily, and lit up the scoreboard themselves, 55-16. “Games at the end of the season might be more fresh in our mind, but it’s important to the committee that we make sure that we value wins at whatever point in the season they occur against quality opponents”. The Tar Heels would be ACC champions with a 12-1 record, capped by the win against Clemson.
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No. 2 Alabama loses to Florida, which just got pummeled 27-2 by Florida State on Saturday, dropping the Crimson Tide from the top four.
CFP committee chairman Jeff Long revealed during a Sunday night conference call that at one point, he thought No. 5 Michigan State would jump over unbeaten No. 4 Iowa in the rankings.
Many people will surely complain that Oklahoma’s loss to Texas should have a more negative impact on their standing, but that is not a strong argument. Michigan State is the only team that beat the Buckeyes this year and if they knock off Iowa in convincing fashion, then Ohio State’s last-second loss to the Spartans won’t look almost as bad. Clemson played sloppy but survived a scare from SC.
The Ohio State Buckeyes finished their season with an exclamation mark as they blew away the No. 10 Michigan Wolverines for a lopsided 42-13 win to improve to 11-1 on the season. Notre Dame, sixth last week, fell to eighth after losing to Stanford. Michigan State and Iowa, ranked fourth and fifth in the latest CFP Poll respectively, will battle it out on Saturday, and the victor will head to football’s Final Four.
Clemson retained the top spot this week and Alabama is second. His name was Cardale Jones, and his performance was so convincing that the Buckeyes leapfrogged into the four-team playoff and eventually won the whole thing.
And another conference championship finalist, SEC East victor Florida, is the lowest-ranked two-loss Power Five team at No. 18. That would lead to another round of familiar chaos, with three teams in particular waiting to take advantage: North Carolina, No. 7 Stanford and No. 6 Ohio State.
All of which makes it all the more possible the committee will simply move the Sooners up a spot to avoid such controversy.
Overrated – No. 14 Northwestern: Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald started doing some campaigning this week for his team to get an at-large berth to a New Year’s Six bowl, as any coach would do for their team.
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In the Bedlam rivalry between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the victor would not only be given the conference title, but a huge step closer to claiming a spot in the playoff. The Irish now sit at No. 8 in the rankings. After last season, perhaps no team would get more benefit of the doubt from the committee. The other team? Ohio State, of course. A win here would cement Iowa’s place in the top four, and probably move them ahead of Oklahoma and into third place in the rankings.
