College Football Playoff committee discussed jumping Michigan State over Iowa

The committee’s final rankings, which will be revealed Sunday at 9 a.m. PST (ESPN) after the regular-season and conference championship games are complete, will establish the composition of the four-team playoff.

The top five of the College Football Playoff rankings remained the same Tuesday with undefeated Clemson holding onto the top spot followed by Alabama, Oklahoma and Iowa. The Sooners rolled over poor Oklahoma State in Bedlam last week to lock up their spot in the playoff.

The Sooners ran away in this one 58-23 literally as the Sooners rushed for over 300 yards and became the first team to clinch a playoff spot as the committee simply cannot overlook the Big 12 champs.

North Carolina doesn’t have the strength of schedule on their side, unless you want to count their opening season loss to SEC stalwart SC and blowout victory over Big Ten powerhouse IL.

A insane slate of high-profile games Week 12 saw Notre Dame, Michigan, Baylor and Oklahoma State all go down along with their playoff chances.

Clemson is still No. 1 and Alabama remained No. 2.

That spot might seem precarious for the Big 12, considering TCU was ranked No. 3 past year heading into the final week of the season before being bumped out in the final rankings. UNC, like Ohio State last season, comes into Saturday as an underdog, and while the Tar Heels winning would be a bigger upset, it wouldn’t be an unthinkable one. The Vols are now a ranked team, on a hot streak, and have a fan base that historically travels well.

Oklahoma will fall to fourth by virtue of doing nothing.

– If Stanford were to make the playoff, the Pac-12 rep would likely be OR, ranked No. 16. No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 9 Florida State are also positioned well for New Year’s Six bowl games.

The committee protocol calls for it to emphasis conference championships when teams are comparable. Neither TCU nor Baylor made it into the playoff past year and that was a big time talker in December.

Championship games for the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC are all scheduled for Saturday. They faced six bowl teams in 2015 and went 4-2. Clemson played sloppy but survived a scare from SC. “And then we saw Alabama play an Auburn team in a rivalry game and win that game, so those are two more pieces to those résumés that allowed us to look deeper into that No. 1 and No. 2 ranking”. Even then, the committee might take Ohio State as a second Big Ten team rather than the Tar Heels.

With No. 4 and No. 5 facing off for the conference championship this week, it’s pretty much seen as a play-in game for the playoff.

Ohio State, the defending national champions, must hope also that No. 7 Stanford (10-2) does not vault past it, given that the Cardinal has a chance to pad its résumé with a Pacific-12 championship game against No. 20 Southern California (8-4), which Stanford beat already this season on September 19 in Los Angeles. The No. 1 team will be placed where it has greater home-field advantage.