Alabama remains No. 1 and Ohio State moves into driver’s seat

The Tigers’ only losses on the season came from Texas A&M and Clemson, proving the Iron Bowl at Alabama in the last week of the season could be a matchup to remember. Michigan’s (at Iowa) and Clemson’s (to Pitt at home) were to unranked teams.

The 12-person selection committee confirmed what had been obvious: MI still controls its own destiny to make the four-team playoff, though it’ll nearly certainly need to beat Ohio State in the regular-season finale, and then win the Big Ten championship game.

The teams immediately in front of the Sooners in this week’s CFP Top 25 are Penn State, at No. 8, and No. 7 Wisconsin. I expect Ohio State to leapfrog the Huskies and actually move all the way up to No. 2 this week.

No. 12 Colorado and No. 13 Oklahoma State each moved up four spots.

Check out the new rankings below. They’ve won at Auburn, vs Louisville and at Florida State.

The remaining games that compose the New Year’s Six access bowl games – Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton – will select the highest-ranked remaining teams that fill their criteria. Southern Cal 7-3 584 NR 16.

Path to the playoff: Alabama has clinched the SEC West title and a spot in the conference championship game.

Now here is how the playoff would play out based on a few of the most likely scenarios.

Last week: Beat Maryland 62-3. MI was upended by Iowa on the road 14-13 as that game also ended on a last-second field goal. Don’t forget, Ohio State and MI still play each other. The Buckeyes must win their final two games. Utah bounced back with a road win over Arizona State, which moved them up to No. 12 this week, and Stanford debuts at No. 24 after three straight wins.

Essentially, the committee has established Ohio State as the best team that isn’t in control of its own destiny.

The Ohio State-Michigan game is the biggest wild-card game of the remaining regular-season contests.

Also, it’s a bit absurd that the undefeated Western Michigan Broncos can’t even crack the top-20 and aren’t ranked ahead of the Boise State Broncos. In addition to Ohio State and MI, the Wisconsin Badgers are number seven.

Rounding out the top four is the Clemson Tigers who dropped from number two following their upset loss at home to the Pittsburgh Panthers. Washington fell from No. 4 to No. 6 after losing 26-13 to USC.

It would appear that the selection committee placed more value on the number of quality wins for Michigan, Clemson and Louisville than it did on the “quality” of each team’s loss. Now all that’s left on their schedule are games against Wake Forest and SC before an expected ACC title game matchup against Virginia Tech.