Notre Dame dropped a spot to No. 10, just two spots ahead of Miami at No. 12, and Texas moved up three spots to No. 13 Tuesday night in the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings.
Heading into conference championship weekend, Ohio State and Indiana remain Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. The Buckeyes and Hoosiers meet in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday.
With only nine title games left to be played this weekend, there is not much opportunity for the rankings to change drastically before Sunday, when the field of 12 will be set by the selection committee. So the second-to-last rankings are a good guide to what the official bracket will look like in a few days.
Georgia (11-1) moved up to No. 3, followed by Texas Tech, Oregon and Ole Miss. The Rebels moved up a spot to No. 6 after winning their season finale against Mississippi State but losing their head coach. Lane Kiffin took the LSU job and will not coach the Rebels in the Playoff.
Texas’ victory over Texas A&M last Friday sent the Aggies out of the top three for the first time this season, to No. 7. The Longhorns (9-3) are the highest ranked team with three losses and are trying to make a case that they are being unfairly punished for playing at Ohio State to start the season. Texas lost 14-7 in Week 1, and then a few weeks later was beaten at Florida (4-8). The Longhorns were also soundly beaten at Georgia in November, but they do have victories against No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 14 Vanderbilt to go along with Texas A&M. Still, Texas looks done.
Alabama (10-2) moved up a spot to ninth after winning the Iron Bowl, and Notre Dame (10-2) slipped to 10th after blowing out Stanford. It’s a small move but possibly significant in that it could safeguard the Tide’s spot in the CFP if it loses the SEC title game to Georgia on Saturday.
“That debate between Notre Dame and Alabama has been one of the fiercest debates for the last three weeks, and it really has split our committee room,” said chairman Hunter Yurachek, the Arkansas athletic director.
The cut line to make the field as an at-large will be No. 10 because two of the five highest-ranked conference champions that are reserved a spot in the CFP at this point are all but guaranteed to be ranked outside the top 12.
That puts No. 11 BYU and No. 12 Miami on the outside looking in going into the final weekend. BYU still has a path to reach the Playoff by winning its conference. The Cougars play Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game on Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
Miami can only get in via an at-large bid after the ACC Championship Game tiebreakers didn’t fall in its favor.
Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal has continued to push for his team’s season-opening victory against Notre Dame to be the deciding factor between the two teams. Notre Dame, which plays football as an independent, has also completed its regular season, closing with a 10-game winning streak after losing to Miami and Texas A&M by a combined four points.
Miami lost to Louisville and SMU by a combined nine points within a three-week span leading into the first CFP rankings. That put the Hurricanes way behind Notre Dame to start, 18th to the Irish’s ninth. Miami closed with a four-game winning streak, capping it by beating Pitt 38-7 on Saturday.
“The best part of football is you get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the No. 1 criteria,” Cristobal told ESPN after the Pitt game.
But it hasn’t so far.
“The head-to-head is just one of the tools that we use to evaluate the teams,” Yurachek said. “If we were just comparing Miami and Notre Dame side by side, it’s a little bit easier to use that comparison. But we’re not comparing Notre Dame and Miami side by side. We’re comparing really this whole — we’ve been comparing Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU and Miami collectively and evaluating those teams and how they look.”
With neither team playing again, it’s unclear how the evaluation would be different Sunday, though maybe the situation would change if BYU were to lose and Miami and Notre Dame were suddenly back-to-back in the rankings.
Yurachek stressed that no team’s ranking is set in stone.
“Idle teams can move based on the results of the championship games,” Yurachek said. “There may be something that happens in a championship game that impacts an idle team, whether that’s their strength of schedule or some other data point that we use, or there could be a team that suffers a significant loss in a title game.”
What’s at stake this weekend
Six conference championship games have Playoff implications, ranging from seeding to home-field advantage in the first round to loser-goes-home.
ACC: No. 17 Virginia vs. Duke in Charlotte, N.C.
Somehow, the ACC has managed to set up a high-stakes elimination game that feels lackluster.
First off, these teams played three weeks ago, and the Cavaliers won 34-17 at Duke. It wasn’t even that close.
Second, Duke (7-5) winning this might cost the ACC a spot in the Playoff altogether. The five conference champions guaranteed a spot in the field are not reserved for any particular conference. It’s simply the five highest ranked champions, and going into championship weekend Duke is unranked.
The Cavaliers (10-2) would have no issue getting into the CFP by capping their magical season with the program’s third ACC title and first since 1995, when they shared it with Florida State.
Big Ten: No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana in Indianapolis
For those who didn’t want an expanded playoff — or any playoff at all — this game is your chance to take a victory lap. Never has there been a less consequential 1 vs. 2 game in the history of college football. The winner will be the top overall seed in the CFP and play in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal. The loser is probably at worst the No. 4 seed, still with a bye.
Big 12: No. 4 Texas Tech vs. No. 11 BYU in Arlington, Texas
There is some intrigue here. The Cougars look like a potential bid thief, to use March Madness lingo. A loss, especially another lopsided one like the regular-season meeting in Lubbock, Texas, probably makes BYU an easy team for the committee to leave out.
But if the Cougars win, could Texas Tech, which has been dominant all season, drop all the way out? Or would another team in the back half of the top-10 — like Notre Dame — get nudged out?
If the Red Raiders win, a first-round bye looks like a lock.
SEC: No. 3 Georgia vs. No. 9 Alabama in Atlanta
The Bulldogs are playing for a first-round bye and the No. 2 seed, but depending how things go in the Big 12 and in their own game, there is a chance they could lose and still get a top-four seed and a bye into the quarterfinals.
Alabama might be the most fascinating team playing Saturday. Win, and the Tide are easily in, probably with a first-round bye and quarterfinal game in the Sugar Bowl.
But what if Alabama loses?
SMU entered last year’s ACC title game 11-1 and ranked eighth, lost and was only dropped to 10th, keeping the Mustangs in the field. The committee cited not punishing teams that play an extra game when compared to those who did not.
Last year’s bubble was a little soft, with a 9-3 Alabama team that had twice lost as a double-digit favorite, a 10-2 Miami that collapsed defensively down the stretch and a 9-3 Ole Miss, which also lost a couple of games as a prohibitive favorite.
This year’s has more viable options in Miami, Texas and Vanderbilt to tempt the committee if Bama stumbles.
American: No. 24 North Texas at No. 20 Tulane
The winner is in. The loser is not. Both teams have coaches who have already accepted Power 4 jobs.
Sun Belt: Troy at No. 25 James Madison
The Dukes (11-1) jumped into the rankings for the first time and now are hoping Duke wins the ACC and that puts them in as the fifth highest ranked conference champ.
