Three of the teams ranked in the top six of the initial College Football Playoff rankings lost on Saturday, which is a good reminder of how much things change between the first and last unveiling of the selection committee’s top 25 teams.
It also sets up an interesting opportunity to see what the committee does on Tuesday night with the three teams that lost. One will likely remain in CFP contention, possibly even still in the top four. The other two could be out of the CFP picture entirely.
Advertisement
This week’s rankings are the second of five in-season rankings, which are released each Tuesday through the end of November. They provide a window into the thinking of this year’s selection committee, an understanding of what it values and how it sees these top teams. As a reminder, it is an incomplete evaluation. But it’s a start, and it can be a signal.
Here are the four most pressing questions heading into this week’s rankings release.
1. How far will Tennessee drop?
The Vols got to be No. 1 for all of four days, and they’ll yield the top spot to the team that beat them soundly on Saturday. Tennessee’s 27-13 loss to Georgia was as lopsided as a 14-point game could be. The Bulldogs’ defense dominated what many considered an unstoppable offense, and they were explosive and efficient with their own offense. As my colleague Seth Emerson put it, Georgia is now the preeminent power in the SEC, until further notice.
So, where does that leave Tennessee? The Vols have wins over Alabama, now on the outside looking in with two losses, and LSU, which just beat Bama. The LSU win looks better, but the Alabama one may have lost a little shine. The Vols will hang around the top four because they’re still very good and the committee likes them, but they almost definitely won’t play in the SEC championship game and will need some help elsewhere around the country to make the field.
The selection committee may keep Tennessee in the top four this week. Some of the teams that might have driven the Vols a tad farther down the rankings (Clemson, Alabama) also lost, and it’s a pretty drastic drop to go from No. 1 to No. 5 or lower. Plus, last week the committee told us it didn’t appreciate the way TCU requires comebacks to win games. That leads me to believe the Vols may not drop farther than No. 4, with the unbeaten Horned Frogs slotted in just behind them.
Advertisement
2. Are Clemson and Alabama really out of the Playoff picture?
I tweeted on Saturday night that we may have just witnessed Alabama and Clemson’s elimination from the Playoff race on the same night, and more than 15,000 people liked it. As much as I’d like to chalk that engagement up to my online persona, I’m going to guess it had more to do with Alabama-Clemson fatigue than anything else. One or both teams has made the top four in every year of the CFP’s existence. And one or both teams has played in the national championship game in each of the past seven years.
The dueling dynasties have been built and sustained in different ways. Even those who are bored by their dominance can begrudgingly respect it; it’s not easy to get to the top and stay there this long. But fans are tired of it. One huge reason behind the push to expand the CFP to a 12-team field before the current contract ends in 2026 is that matchup fatigue.
Now, barring a meteor strike, it’s safe to say the Crimson Tide will not make the CFP this year. Alabama has two losses and will need considerable help to even play for the SEC championship, and no team with two losses has ever made the CFP. You’d have to think the first two-loss team to break that streak will be a conference champion (which is why LSU controls its own destiny). Is Clemson also out, too? The drubbing the Tigers took at the hands of an up-and-down Notre Dame team should give the committee pause. The committee gave Clemson its top-four spot last week because it was unbeaten and had three Top 25 wins. Clemson is no longer unbeaten, and it might be down to just one Top 25 win after Syracuse and Wake Forest’s losses last weekend. The Tigers should be out of the CFP mix, but we won’t know for sure until we see how much their first loss cost them.
I think this week’s voting breakdown in The Athletic staff’s CFP top four predictions shows the type of split that exists in the committee room concerning the Big Ten’s two best teams. Ohio State received 17 second-place votes, and Michigan was not far behind with 11 second-place votes.
I’ve made the case that Michigan is the better team right now, and I stand by that. Advanced metrics still love the Buckeyes despite their struggles in the run game and the general malaise of Saturday’s 21-7 win against Northwestern. They would be favored over the Wolverines by 3.5 points according to ESPN’s FPI and by 3.3 points according to Bill Connolly’s SP+. Ohio State still leads the nation in net points per drive, as well. It’s safe to assume the committee’s preferred metrics are going to favor Ohio State, too.
Advertisement
But Michigan has been the more consistent and dominant team, especially if you compare the two teams’ performances against shared opponent Penn State. Or the way both teams handled inferior opponents on Saturday after the challengers fought hard to stay in the game in the first half. The Wolverines outscored Rutgers 38-0 in the second half, winning the game in the trenches as we’re used to seeing them do. Ohio State slogged its way to an unsettling 14-point victory against the one-win Wildcats, who outgained the Buckeyes and pushed them around at the line of scrimmage. In bad weather conditions, Ohio State should have been able to line up and bulldoze a team like Northwestern, and it didn’t.
But what does the committee think? This group had Ohio State three spots ahead of Michigan last week, dinging the Wolverines for their weak nonconference schedule. Is that going to be what keeps the order the same? Or will the committee penalize the Buckeyes for the weaknesses they’ve had exposed over the last three games?
4. How much of a boost did Oregon get from Week 10’s results?
Georgia was the big winner on Saturday, for obvious reasons, but Oregon might have been the second-biggest winner of the day because every opponent the Bulldogs crush makes the Ducks’ lopsided Week 1 loss in Atlanta a little easier to swallow. Maybe that 49-3 final score spoke more to Georgia’s talent level than to Oregon’s.
Losses by Tennessee, Alabama and Clemson cleared some room near the top of the rankings. If the Tide and Tigers are really out of CFP contention, they’ll drop below Oregon in this week’s rankings. So that’s a top-six spot at worst for the Ducks. Plus, Tennessee won’t have a chance to play for a conference championship, and Michigan and Ohio State still need to play each other. It’s too early to know for sure, but you can make the case that Oregon controls its Playoff destiny. A one-loss Pac-12 champion whose only loss came to the No. 1 team in the country would figure to have a pretty strong case.
The Ducks remain the most intriguing team in the top 10. Oregon has scored 40 or more points in every game since the opener and has collected a marquee win over UCLA. Offensively, they’re very good and sometimes electric. Defensively, well, they’ve got some issues … just like Tennessee. And TCU. And USC. And UCLA.
We’ve also never really seen the committee forced to address a situation in which a No. 4 hopeful lost this badly to the presumed No. 1 team in nonconference play all the way back in Week 1. Would the fact that there has already been a blowout involving these two teams factor in at all? How could it not? I’m fascinated by the layers to Oregon’s resume, and there’s no way to know how much the Ducks would need to do from Week 2 onward to fully offset what they did in Week 1. If the Ducks keep winning, we’ll find out soon.
(Photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
