Oklahoma slipped to No. 4 in the final CFP rankings, down one spot from Tuesday night, but that proved to be enough to send the Sooners (11-1) into a December 31 semifinal matchup against No. 1 Clemson (13-0) in the Orange Bowl.
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The new rankings kept Clemson (1), Alabama (2), Oklahoma (3), Iowa (4), and Michigan State (5) where they were, with the likes of Ohio State (6), Stanford (7), and North Carolina (10) knocking on the door.
It is down to the final week of the college football season with some conferences finishing off their regular season schedules while others will have their conference championship games.
Coming into the weekend, the five teams in the CFP rankings are the same with Clemson number one, Alabama number two, Oklahoma number three and Iowa number four.
And it was no surprise that the standings had a slight change of look after the outcome from some of the biggest games played late Saturday evening.
Assuming the Cardinal win, they will likely jump No. 6 Ohio State and the loser of the Big Ten title game due to the fact that they will be a conference champion.
Committee chairman Jeff Long said most of the committee debate was over Clemson-Alabama at Nos. The Tigers must turn back No. 10 North Carolina for the ACC title, Alabama faces a talented and hard No. 18 Florida for the SEC crown, and the Hawkeyes must fend off the Spartans for the Big Ten. Clemson will be playing the #10 North Carolina Tar Heels. Ohio State’s lone, marquee victory came last week against MI. Florida State fell from No. 2 to No. 3 despite staying undefeated between the 11th and 12th weeks of the season.
The rankings that will actually determine which four teams will play for a national title, and which ones are headed off to bowl games of a lesser stature.
This is a Houston team that not only beat a Navy team that was ranked No. 15 last week, but beat it by 21 points. Granted, when these games were scheduled the BCS system was still probably how playoff games were determined.
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In the playoff semifinals, the simulation has #1 seed Clemson facing off against #4 seed Iowa and has Clemson winning 72% (81.0% last week) of the time by an average score of 28-21 (29-19 last week).
