The penultimate edition of the College Football Playoff rankings set the stage for a routine selection day — or for mass chaos if a handful of upsets materialize.
There’s intrigue in the middle and at the bottom of the top 25 revealed Tuesday afternoon, but not at the top.
Let’s start there:
— Ohio State and Indiana, the only remaining undefeated teams in major college football, are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, ahead of their showdown Saturday in the Big Ten championship game. The loser likely will remain in the top-four in the final CFP rankings and receive an opening-round bye.
— Texas Tech moved up one spot, to No. 4, which suggests the Red Raiders (11-1) are safely in the 12-team playoff even if they lose to BYU in the Big 12 championship. In that scenario, the conference would have the two bids it covets.
— Oregon also moved up one spot, to No. 5, which arguably offers the best path into the semifinals.
If the Ducks remain fifth, they will host an opening-round game against a Group of Five opponent and, with a victory, advance to face No. 4 Texas Tech in the quarterfinals.
— Mississippi moved up one position, as well, to No. 6, despite losing coach Lane Kiffin to LSU.
“It’s impossible for us at this time as a committee to evaluate what the impact is on losing your head coach, specifically at Ole Miss, because we don’t have a game that we can compare Ole Miss with Lane Kiffin versus without him,” committee chair Hunter Yuracheck, the Arkansas athletic director, told reporters on a teleconference call.
“Without that datapoint, it really did not become part of our thought process in how we evaluated Ole Miss this week.”
— The real intrigue begins with No. 9 Alabama, which flipped positions with No. 10 Notre Dame this week — a change that could prove decisive.
If the Crimson Tide loses the SEC championship, it has a tad more cushion to remain in the field. (The cut line is between 10th and 11th)
“That debate between Notre Dame and Alabama has been one of the fiercest debates for the last three weeks,” Yurachek said, “and it really has split our committee room.”
Meanwhile, the Irish slipped closer to No. 12 Miami, placing them in danger of falling out of the field due to their head-to-head loss to the Hurricanes.
Both teams are 10-2, and neither plays this week, but the committee could adjust their rankings nonetheless, according to chair Hunter Yurachek, the Arkansas athletic director.
“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 datapoint that we use, or there could be a team that suffers a significant loss in a title game.”
That represents a policy change from last year, when the committee stated in advance of championship weekend that idle teams could not move up or down.
— BYU’s ranking remained unchanged (No. 11), offering additional evidence that the Cougars (11-1) have no chance to make the field through the at-large pool. They must beat Texas Tech on Saturday to qualify as the Big 12 champ.
Notably, BYU is the lowest-ranked one-loss team from the power conferences.
— Texas jumped three spots, to No. 13, following its victory over previously-undefeated Texas A&M.
The ascent seemingly wasn’t enough to position the three-loss Longhorns for an at-large berth despite lobbying by coach Steve Sarkisian, whose case is based on the following: If the Longhorns had opened the season against a creampuff instead of Ohio State, they would have two losses and be on track for a bid.
Despite changes to the selection process that were designed to emphasize quality wins and schedule strength, the committee is paying close attention to loss totals.
The top-10 teams are ranked in order of their losses with two undefeated teams at the top, followed by five teams with one loss and then three teams with two losses.
— Utah slipped again and has dropped three positions, to No. 15, in the past two weeks after struggling to defeat the mediocre Kansas schools. The Utes earned style points from the committee in the initial rankings but have gone in reverse at precisely the wrong time.
— Three teams from the Group of Five are on the bottom tier: No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 North Texas of the American and and No. 25 James Madison of the Sun Belt.
The development could have massive consequences for the ACC if unranked Duke wins the conference championship.
The CFP selection process doesn’t guarantee a berth for the ACC winner. The five automatic bids are assigned to the highest-ranked conference champions.
If No. 17 Virginia wins the ACC, the Cavaliers will qualify.
But if Duke (7-5) is crowned champion — it has three non-conference losses — the Blue Devils could finish behind both the American and Sun Belt winners.
That would leave the ACC champion on the outside looking in, a stunning development.
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