Clemson: It’s hard seeing Clemson lose to a 3-8 SC team, but weirder things have happened. North Carolina (10-1) 15.
Advertisement
UNC would be a one-loss ACC champ (with two FCS wins and a awful loss to South Carolina). Probably, but a loss to such a weak Gamecocks team might be enough of a shocker to make the committee reconsider about the #1 team in the nation right now. Clemson and Alabama occupied the first two spots. If Florida builds up their resume with a win over Florida State and can upset the Tide in competitive fashion, Alabama can still be near the top of the standings as Florida enters the mix. Beat Florida in the SEC championship game? The Sooners will play at Oklahoma State on Saturday with a chance to win the Big 12. It goes with the history of the program. Stanford’s schedule strength would trump Baylor’s and could give the committee ample reason to look past the number in the loss column – which it has shown it is more than willing to do. Texas Tech, 6. Oklahoma and 17. They’re #3 right now. Oklahoma State (10-1), 12. The Sooners’ loss was to Texas and with the Big 12 now using head-to-head tiebreakers, they would be the conference’s one champion. Remember, this is all going to change next week, and it’s all going to change again the week after with the final call.
No. 5 Michigan State has to play Penn State this weekend. No. 1 Penn State (11-0) and No. 3 Oklahoma (10-1) faced each other in the Orange Bowl for what was advertised as the national title game. With a victory, they still will need some help after falling from fourth to sixth Tuesday in the latest College Football Playoff rankings after a 19-16 victory against Boston College on Saturday at Fenway Park. Though they don’t have the wins against teams like Oregon, Michigan and Ohio State, their only loss is to the best team in the country.
Unbeaten Iowa (11-0) and No. 5 Michigan State (10-1) can set up a possible playoff play-in game in the Big Ten championship if both win this weekend.
Michigan: Still in the running, although barely. The two teams moved up at the expense of Ohio Stateand Notre Dame. Do you really MI to try backdoor their way into the Big Ten Championship like they did in the Sugar Bowl during Brady Hoke’s first year?
Over at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s model has simulated the rest of the season thousands of times and Oklahoma now has a 64% chance (up from 45% a week ago) to take one of the four playoff spots, tied with Alabama, and trailing only Clemson (71%).
The popular notion has been that because of a pillowy soft non-conference schedule, the Bears needed to go undefeated to reach the Playoff – so when they lost last week at home to Oklahoma, they were finished. It is painfully obvious, that wins are OK in the eyes of the committee, but how you win is more important.
There could be more shakeup in the rankings next week after Oklahoma visits Oklahoma State and Notre Dame plays at Stanford.
Advertisement
“Oklahoma’s entire body of work, with another win against a Top 25 team (in TCU) this week and what it has done over the last few weeks when added in vaulted them into that No. 3 spot”, Long said. Ohio State technically isn’t out of the playoff hunt, but they are still ridiculously overrated at No. 8. But coach Brian Kelly had said earlier Tuesday he believes they will be in if they close the regular season with a win at Stanford (9-2), which is No. 9 in the CFP rankings.
