Iowa (12-0) is No. 4 and Michigan State (11-1) is No. 5, setting up a playoff play-in game in Saturday’s Big Ten title game.
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After Oklahoma’s impressive victory over Oklahoma State in Bedlam on Saturday, the Sooners appear to be headed to the College Football Playoff as the Big 12’s first representative.
Since claiming the No. 1 spot in the initial College Football Playoff standings on November 3, the Clemson University football team has not dominated opponents or dazzled with style points. A 12-1 North Carolina team riding a 12-game winning streak with a win over the No. 1 team in the country and an ACC Championship should be a lock to make the field.
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. Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa and Michigan State are ranked 1-5, in that order.
Possibly more revealing than the top four this week was the placement of teams on the bubble, namely No. 6 Ohio State, No. 7 Stanford and No. 10 North Carolina. That could be extra motivation for the Trojans and making it a trap game for Stanford this Saturday in the Pac-12 Championship Game. Alabama plays Florida in the SEC Championship game facing the same win-and-in scenario.
On the subject of whether the two-season-old playoff ultimately could see its first conference non-champion as a playoff entry, Long said: “I don’t know how to answer that because I don’t know any of the variables of that non-champion”. “And then secondly, last year there was discussion about having a – not having a conference championship game hurting a team, and then this year there’s discussion about it advantaging a team”. Right now, Oklahoma State and TCU are tied for second, a half-game ahead of Baylor, in the Big 12.
The difference was in the strength of the Crimson Tide’s wins – Alabama does not have a victory over a team in the top 10. We would assume that the Buckeyes get in if either Clemson (against North Carolina) or Alabama (against Florida) lose their respective title games.
Path to the Playoff: Beat Clemson in the ACC championship, have Alabama lose the SEC championship and Stanford lose the Pac-12 championship.
Teams four, five and six are going to argue about the No. 4 spot. Ohio State, 11-1 (8) 7.
The answer is: You don’t-especially when that team is ranked No. 2 heading into the final week of the season.
Alabama remained No. 2 in the rankings and is still slated to face No. 3 Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl.
And while all three of those teams have two losses, save for Florida State’s loss to Georgia Tech, they’re all good losses.
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This is the second-to-last set of rankings released by the selection committee. With that said, Oklahoma is now the only team in the nation who has their ticket to the playoff punched. The championship game will be January 11 at Glendale, Ariz. Ohio State sits at No. 6. The highest ranked team gets the spot.
