Oklahoma jumps to third in College Football Playoff rankings

The 2006 Rose Bowl is the last time the BCS National Championship didn’t include the SEC champion, and the trend continued through the first year of the playoff.

All four teams that moved into the rankings this week have already been there previously this season.

Oklahoma moved into third and Iowa was fourth in the College Football Playoff rankings as Notre Dame slipped to No. 6 on Tuesday night. If one of these teams can notch a definitely win, they can possibly vault themselves into the Top Four conversation.

HOGAN’S GOODBYE: This will be the final home game for one of the most productive quarterbacks ever to play at Stanford. It’s the ultimate head-spinning, scenario-scrambling, conference-crushing playoff possibility.

Notre Dame and coach Brian Kelly will need a stellar performance at Stanford to get back into the top four. Only this was Bedlam and a rivalry game, and we all know that season records and past achievement means nothing in games like this. Clemson and Alabama occupied the first two spots.

Chaos in the ACC – Clemson loses to both SC and North Carolina.

The Irish’s biggest “victory” this year was a two-point loss at No. 1 Clemson during a tropical storm. Oklahoma (10-1), 4. Iowa (11-0), 5.

Baylor, which is No. 8, and MI, slotted at No. 10, are the other two teams in the top 10.

The Spartans had one of the biggest wins of the year last Sunday at Ohio State so I am not exactly jumping up and down in outrage like I am over Oklahoma.

Big 12 – Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, TCU beats Baylor: The Bears stands to inherit the Big 12 title should Oklahoma State win, but with Jarrett Stidham now out for the regular season with a broken bone in his ankle, a win over TCU on the road is far from guaranteed. Baylor at 3? How are they even ahead of the Sooners, Oklahoma beat Baylor just last week! Why Oklahoma up to No. 3? But, really, which teams can get it done?

Oklahoma State pulls off the upset as a home dog, becomes the one-loss Big 12 champion and forces the committee to rethink the Cowboys’ No. 11 ranking.

Notre Dame (10-1) also plays its last game of the season Saturday, a possible résumé-builder against Stanford, which is ninth in the rankings. Notre Dame (10-1), 7. Oklahoma clinches the conference with the win and possibly a playoff spot with its resume.

Stanford needs multiple results to go its way in each conference in order to have an argument. But the possibility exists that the Gators are ranked so low that if they defeat Florida State to end the season and somehow beat Alabama in the SEC title game that the mighty Southeastern Conference is left out entirely. The Fighting Irish may have fallen out of a playoff spot for now, but they still have a chance of getting back in the equation. The number is at 71 right now, and there are 14 teams in need of one more victory, including four Big Ten squads – Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Like I said before, there are eleven undefeated or one-loss Power 5 teams, meaning now seven of those teams won’t get into the Playoff.

It inevitably raises more questions, which we’ll attempt to answer. Zaire’s replacement in DeShone Kizer has been more than competent as the team’s starting signal-caller.

BEST OF REST: Football: No. 18 Ole Miss at No. 21 Mississippi State (4:15 p.m., ESPN2 (31)), No. 13 Florida State at No. 12 Florida (4:30 p.m., ESPN (30)).

The world of college football is very exciting right now with the second set of College Football Playoff Rankings just released.

There have been a couple of examples of other teams in recent college football history where a team won the national championship without a fantastic quarterback, but it isn’t the norm.