College Football Playoff 2017: Projected top 4 after Week 1
The 2017 college football season has finally started and the results after Week 1 has one top team questioning its College Football Playoff hopes.
Week 1 of the college football season has finally come and gone. The greatest college football season opener of all time turned into a beatdown. The first-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide beat the third-ranked Florida State Seminoles in convincing fashion, 24-7.
Not only did Alabama win, but Florida State also lost their starting quarterback Deondre Francois for the season. Francois suffered a torn patella tendon after a sack by safety Ronnie Harrison late in the fourth quarter.
The injury to Francois puts the Seminoles’ Playoff hopes in serious doubt now. After Week One, there’s one performer that looked like they could take the Florida State’s spot, but we’ll get to that.
A few other top teams struggled early in their season openers across the nation.
The second-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes trailed Big Ten foe Indiana, 14-13 at halftime, before running away to a 49-21 victory.
The fourth-ranked USC Trojans struggled with the unranked Western Michigan Broncos and their tough ground game for much of the game. They eventually won the game 49-31.
Other top teams looked great in improving their potential to make the College Football Playoff.
The sixth-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions beat the Akron Zips, 52-0 behind the legs of running back Saquon Barkley. The seventh-ranked Oklahoma Sooners made easy work of the UTEP Miners, 56-7.
There will be snubs
However, like all good things, there will be snubs. So, here’s the disclaimer, it’s Week 1, so there could be some overreaction to this top four rankings and that’s okay.
One fanbase who will probably feel snubbed after this is the USC Trojans. Unfortunately, the Trojans didn’t look like the fourth-ranked team in the country, at least on defense. The Broncos ran for 263 rushing yards against the USC defense in the game.
As the season goes on, we’ll get a better feel for teams and be able to but right now, this early College Football Playoff prediction puts next week’s schedule in mind, especially for the first team in the rankings.
The Deondre Francois injury certainly changes the landscape for the ACC, so the first team serves as their potential replacement in the College Football Playoff field. Nothing is set in stone yet, but the 2017 season is setting up to be another interesting year.