College Football Playoff Rankings 2019: Projected Top 25, Week 12

LSU took a major leap in their top-three matchup against Alabama, while other teams bolstered their position in the College Football Playoff rankings.

Last year, three teams dropped out of the College Football Playoff rankings when the selection committee released their second Top 25. The highest-ranked team falling out of the committee rankings was Utah, which sat at No. 15 before losing 38-20 at Arizona State. We also saw No. 20 Texas A&M and No. 25 Virginia collapse after losses to Auburn and Pittsburgh respectively.

No. 21 Stanford and No. 22 Arizona fell out after one week in 2017. A year earlier in 2016, No. 11 Florida and No. 17 Baylor were dropped by the committee after losses between the first and second set of rankings. In 2015 it was No. 18 Ole Miss, No. 19 Texas A&M, and No. 24 Toledo that all stumbled out of the club. And in the inaugural season of the College Football Playoff, the committee dropped No. 23 East Carolina and No. 25 Louisville.

So we will almost certainly see two or three teams drop out this week and open the door for new programs to gain recognition from the selection committee. Kansas State and Wake Forest are both projected out of the College Football Playoff rankings this week after losses to Texas and Virginia Tech respectively, both of who were unranked at the time of the takedown.

Could Iowa also fall out? We have seen teams fall to ranked opponents and stay up in that opening week, making it less likely that the Hawkeyes will tumble out than the Wildcats and Demon Deacons.

What else is going to shift around this week when the College Football Playoff selection committee takes to the airwaves on ESPN to release their second set of rankings ahead of Week 12 on Tuesday? Keep reading for our latest projections after a wild set of Week 11 contests.