Plenty still up in air in College Football Playoff race

We’re not talking insane upsets, but reasonable losses, knowing that insane upsets could always happen.

While Clemson and Alabama remained 1-2 in the rankings, there was some shakeup in the top four.

If Navy is in the mix, the committee would announce the pairing for one of the New Year’s Six bowls – either the Fiesta or Peach -and one participant in the other New Year’s Six bowl, holding the other spot in that game for the Group of Five rep.

Numbers crunching FiveThirtyEight.com suggested on Sunday that Oklahoma has the third-best chance to make playoff.

After two weeks at No. 4, Notre Dame has slipped outside the Playoff field.

If No. 5 Michigan State loses to Penn State, with that line based on whether Spartans starting quarterback Connor Cook plays or not…

No. 7 Baylor at No. 15 TCU, Friday. Stanford is ninth, then MI. In the era of the Big 12 round-robin schedule, Iowa State is a really hard job.

Three kings have ruled the college football world for much of the 2015 season.

Other ranked teams from the ACC include Clemson at No. 1 and North Carolina just behind the Seminoles at No. 14. If Nick Saban’s team can win the Iron Bowl this Saturday afternoon (3:30 pm ET, CBS) and then dispose of No. 12 Florida in the SEC Championship the following week, Alabama will likely be handed a high Playoff seed. Baylor faced a good Kansas State team at home, posted a solid win, but still was being dragged down by its nonconference schedule and a loss at West Virginia, which finished in the middle of the Big 12. Instead, a Stanford win will knock the Irish out of the playoff picture while still putting the Cardinal behind any one-loss Big Ten team. Ohio State, Florida, and Oklahoma State all had big drops this week, however, the Buckeyes still have a 25% chance to be in the playoff.

The Iowa Hawkeyes broke into the College Football Playoff final four on Tuesday night, moving up a spot from last week and into No. 4.

Iowa would be a one-loss Big Ten champ. It’s not the poll world anymore.

Last season TCU finished with a weak Iowa State team. Michigan State 6. Notre Dame 7. They have already written themselves off to the spoiler roll, meanwhile Baylor, although coming off a loss, showed up to play at Oklahoma State and proved they are not out of playoff discussions just yet.

No. 10 MI beat the Hoosiers 48-41 in double overtime after the Wolverines tied the game on the final play of regulation with a 5-yard touchdown pass. 3, 4 and 5, respectively. Asked about the impression that the win over Oklahoma State might have made with third-string quarterback Chris Johnson turning in a breakthrough performance, Briles turned to a Thanksgiving appropriate cooking analogy.

There will also be two huge top-10 showdowns when Notre Dame travels to Stanford while MI hosts Ohio State in an always entertaining rivalry affair.

Even though the Big 12 has been under ranked for most of the CFP committee’s rankings, a conference championship, although one determine in the regular season, will still be important to the committee in their discussions.