3 in College Football Playoff Standings

“We had a number of re-votes where we dug into those areas and those teams”, Long said in response to a question about committee members significantly changing their minds on Iowa and Oklahoma.

Help needed: The Sooners appear to be a lock with a win at Bedlam on Saturday, but they might need some style points to feel secure. The Utes are one of six teams in the Top 25 with three losses, including No. 17 OR, No. 18 Ole Miss, No. 20 Washington State, No. 21 Mississippi State, and No. 22 UCLA. Iowa, however, has been very successful executing its plays and is one of the most complete teams in college football. The committee moved up the Sooners to No. 3 Tuesday night in its weekly rankings, and now the Sooners can go all Sally Field. OU jumped Iowa, which doesn’t matter so much, and Notre Dame, which matters a bunch.

Imagine if Notre Dame gets recharged by its sloppy performance against Boston College and subsequent rankings drop and takes out all of that energy on Stanford.

With Oklahoma’s ascent to No. 3 in the CFP, the Sooners are conference champions and looking like a safe bet to reach the playoff with a win. All concentration by the Notre Dame team must completely be on Stanford and no other “noise”.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said Tuesday his team’s resume speaks for itself. It’s pretty simple: Defeat TCU and Texas.

Notre Dame: WR Will Fuller.

Unbeaten Iowa (11-0) and No. 5 MI State (10-1) can setup a possible playoff play-in game in the Big Ten championship if both win this weekend. And if the committee is willing to forgive Oklahoma losing to Texas, it probably views that insane MI State ending as a complete pass. Wins this week by the Hawkeyes and Spartans would all but assure that the conference has a spot in the playoff semifinals.

Toledo: They need to beat Western MI to get into the MAC championship game. A two loss Florida team, even as SEC champions, might not get into the playoffs. In Week 2, Notre Dame trailed Virginia (4-7) with 12 seconds left before third-string quarterback, and now starter, Deshone Kizer entered to toss a game winning 40-yard touchdown pass. The Committee may not look on such a tight win over a mediocre Virginia squad as a good win. I wrote an Armageddon piece earlier this year that the Big-12 would not have a single undefeated team and they would eliminate themselves from the playoff. But will a one loss Clemson team with the ACC title make it in?

MI State might have helped its stock the most, aside from Oklahoma.

Next big obstacle: Friday at Nebraska. They need to lose to North Carolina State this weekend or to Clemson in the conference championship. The top four teams are awarded an opportunity to compete in the national playoff.

No. 12 Florida (10-1) can make the top four only if it wins out. The victor of the Navy-Houston game will host either Temple or South Florida next Saturday at 12 noon in the American Championship game. Also just ahead of the Seminoles are one-loss Oklahoma State at No. 11, two-loss MI at No. 10 and two-loss Stanford at No. 9. And if Stanford wins out, the committee might take even a two-loss Cardinal team over the Cowboys. The Sooners (10-1) and Hawkeyes (11-0) fall in at Nos.

SC: This season has been awful, with Steve Spurrier leaving in the middle of it. The only thing that can put a smile on their faces is beating Clemson, in hope it denies them a top 4 spot. The season-opening loss to SC looms large.