Projected final 2020 College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings after Week 16

Ranked by the College Football Playoff selection committee for the past two weeks, NC State won’t be penalized for not playing since December 5 when the committee decides on its final Top 25 of the season. The Wolfpack will remain somewhere in the 20s as they just barely make the cut once again as the committee sees fit to keep a fifth ACC team ranked in its last set of rankings.

In many ways it is a testament to how lucky Dave Doeren’s team was in terms of their revised ACC schedule. The Wolfpack were originally due to play at Clemson, but they avoided the Tigers as well as Notre Dame when the league reconfigured a 10-game conference slate. A statement win over 9-1 Liberty helps bolster NC State’s claim on a Top 25 spot, as does the fact that two of their three losses came against teams ranked higher than the Wolfpack.

With the regular season complete and no chance at a New Year’s Six bowl game, the Wolfpack wait and see where they will head this postseason. Their likeliest landing spot is the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville against an SEC opponent or the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte against a Big Ten foe. Either way, they will get one final chance to make a statement for the nation and prove their merits as a Top 25 team.