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College Football Playoff Rankings: 5 things to know

By Patrick Schmidt

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The second batch of the College Football Playoff Rankings are out and is in, replacing LSU, but here are the five biggest takeaways from the rankings.

The second edition of the College Football Playoff rankings are out and there’s no surprise at the top after the Clemson Tigers, Alabama Crimson Tide and Ohio State Buckeyes won their games over the weekend.

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The real drama was who would be the fourth team and replace former No. 2 LSU after Leonard Fournette and the Tigers lost at Alabama, and who would be the two teams nipping on their heels to get into the playoff picture. They lost 30-16 so the margin of defeat was too great for LSU to stay in the top four despite their lone loss coming at the No. 2 team in the country.

Heading into the reveal it seemed to be a three-team race between the Oklahoma State Cowboys who beat No. 8 TCU last week in impressive fashion behind five touchdowns from Mason Rudolph and a monster performance from wide receiver James Washington.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were fifth in last week’s rankings and would seem to be the natural choice to slide up one spot, but maybe the playoff committee was impressed with what they saw from the No. 6 Baylor Bears in their win on Thursday night at Kansas State with Jarrett Stidham making his first start.

When the teams were revealed, it was Clemson staying at No. 1, Alabama moved up to No. 2 after beating No. 2 LSU, and Ohio State was at No. 3 as expected. The last three teams in contention were the Baylor Bears, Iowa Hawkeyes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Ultimately, it was Notre Dame who moved up from No. 5 to No. 4.

  • Iowa is the biggest winner despite not being in the top four after moving up four spots to No. 5 and control their destiny with a win over Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game.
  • LSU falling from No. 2 to No. 9 seemed pretty harsh after losing at Alabama. Yes, they were due for a drop but seven spots seemed a bit of an overreaction.
  • Committee must hate TCU. Horned Frogs fell seven spots to No. 15 after losing to Oklahoma State. They were penalized for this loss more than Michigan State (6 to 13) was for losing to a three-win Nebraska team.
  • Baylor disrespect continues as they were passed by Iowa but they have games left with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU. If they run the table, there’s no way they get left out, is there?
  • What happens with the Notre Dame/No. 7 Stanford winner if they’re both one-loss teams? Will they bump out an undefeated Big 12 team? If that happens what more does the Big 12 have to do to convince the committee they’re worthy of a spot?!

I know Baylor, Oklahoma State and the Big 12 want the respect now, but the back loaded schedule gives them a chance to move in the top four on the last weekend like Ohio State did last week instead of falling out in the last weekend.

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Baylor has the fourth toughest remaining schedule in the country, so if they win out, they’ll have the impressive wins that the playoff committee places above just about everything minus conference championships.

They have the opportunity to make their case the rest of the way and all they need to worry about today is taking care of their business on the field.

There is plenty of football left to be played, but of the top four teams, how many are you willing to bet will ultimately be in the playoff when it starts in January?

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