Latest College Football Playoff Rankings

One-loss Iowa might be seeded ahead of Ohio State, but not ahead of a potential Pac-12 champion Cardinal – owners of several impressive wins entering Saturday. But it’s plain to see Oklahoma should be OK.

While four of the top five teams will sweat out a conference title game this week, No. 3 Oklahoma will sit idle as the Big 12 continues to operate without a championship game.

The Big XII, shut out of the bracket last season, looks like it may be the very first conference in the playoff this time around.

Committee chairman Jeff Long said most of the committee debate was over Clemson-Alabama at Nos.

PredictionMachine.com has crunched the data for 50,000 computer simulations of the most likely teams in the four-team college football playoff (Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and Iowa).

The biggest matchup this week will be the Big Ten title game, which will pit No. 4 Iowa against No. 5 Michigan State, with the victor likely securing a spot in the four-team playoff. Alabama are number 5 on the A&H, but good in the others. North Carolina hasn’t beaten a team that’s now ranked by the committee, and its best win this season is over either 8-4 Pitt or 8-4 Miami.

“Our charge is clearly rank those top four teams, one, two, three and four, and we’re going to do that by who we think are the best teams, and that will be how they end up one through four”, he said.

Should North Carolina complete the unlikely, and Florida achieve the seemingly impossible, the Playoff committee better have plenty of Excedrin on hand, though. “It’s clear in Ohio State’s favor in the strength of schedule”.

You could certainly have made an argument for the Sooners to jump Alabama after a dominating road win against Oklahoma State, but this may be where Oklahoma belongs considering it was ranked a bit too high coming into the game. I know the AAC isn’t a Power Five conference, but it now has three teams ranked by the committee. Basically, it’s a tiebreaker. A loss to UNC would put the committee in a tough position. If they win, they could be on the way to a title.

The top four remained the same from last week, with Alabama at No. 2, Oklahoma at No. 3 and Iowa at No. 4.

The Tar Heels are in a precarious spot as the only potential one-loss P5 conference champion that doesn’t control its own playoff fate. The victor will make it into the Playoff.

The SEC is out. For a non-champion to get in, a team is going to have to be something truly special and the one loss will have to be an aberration.

Stanford (10-2) moved into the seventh spot after upsetting No. 8 Notre Dame last week. Florida 10-219. Houston 11-120.

While the Big 12 regular season continues for some teams on Saturday, Oklahoma is already in the clubhouse as the undisputed conference champs and are sitting at No. 3 in the current rankings. Probably the most exciting game will be when Iowa plays Michigan State. After last season, perhaps no team would get more benefit of the doubt from the committee.

If one of the top two slip up, No. 7 Stanford has a final chance to make its case against No. 24 USC in the Pac-12 title game.