College Football Playoff: Projected Week 12 rankings

How the four-team College Football Playoff rankings will look heading into Week 12. The official rankings come out Tuesday night, but here’s how it’ll look.

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The Clemson Tigers made it two weeks in a row as the nation’s No. 1 team but could a less-than-dominant showing in the 37-27 win over the Syracuse Orange have Dabo Swinney’s team in jeopardy of dropping out of the top spot?

Deshaun Watson was dominant again with 360 yards and two touchdowns and had a game-high 105 rushing yards and another score but Syracuse hung with Clemson, trailing only 21-14 after one quarter, and hanging around until the end in the 10-point loss.

Meanwhile, the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide picked up where they left off last week against the LSU Tigers and turned in another dominating performance against Dak Prescott and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Alabama adds another win over a ranked opponent in their 31-6 win and Derrick Henry ran for 204 yards, his third 200-yard game in four games.

The No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes got J.T. Barrett back at quarterback after serving a one-game suspension but it was Ezekiel Elliott who led the way for the defending champions, rushing for 181 yards, his 15th straight game with 100 yards. The Buckeyes didn’t gain any style points in the 28-3 win over the Illinois Fighting Illini, however.

All three of these teams will be in the new rankings on Tuesday night but the fourth team could be different.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the No. 4 team but a couple factors could knock them out this week. They beat the Wake Forest Demon Deacons 28-7, but they tied in the second half with each team trading touchdowns in an otherwise solid, if not spectacular outing.

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What could hurt Notre Dame is something completely out of their hands, however as their signature win over the Temple Owls isn’t as impressive after the Owls lost 44-23 to South Florida.

And coupled with Stanford’s loss to Oregon, the Fighting Irish won’t have a showdown with a top-seven team to boost their resume.

But what could save Notre Dame is the teams behind them may not have done enough to overtake Brian Kelly‘s team this week, so let’s take a look at how I project the top four teams will look when the playoff rankings are revealed Tuesday night.

So I expect the status quo, although the gap between No. 1 Clemson and No. 2 Alabama is as thin as a runway model, and I think if those two teams were to play on a neutral field next Saturday, it would be Alabama that’d be victorious.

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I just don’t think the committee will drop Clemson and I don’t think they’ll drop Notre Dame just because Temple lost.

The first team out would be the Oklahoma Sooners after they beat the No. 6 Baylor Bears in their place with Baker Mayfield leading them to a 44-34 win in Waco.

I could see them getting in on the final weekend if they win out and beat an undefeated Oklahoma State in Bedlam on the final week of the regular season. It would be a reverse of last year when TCU and Baylor were passed on the final weekend by Ohio State.

I think the Iowa Hawkeyes will drop one spot even though they continue to roll along after beating Minnesota 40-35 to take the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy for the school’s first 10-0 start in program history.