Herbstreit has Clemson #1 in his Playoff Rankings

Now it’s the opposite.

Alabama is susceptible to teams with a balanced attack, and though the Spartans haven’t been remarkable on the ground-159.6 yards per game and 1.9 touchdowns per game-they make up for it with arguably the most veteran college quarterback in Cook under center. Michigan State, 11-1, 1,318 (6) 6.

In ’11, Oklahoma was preseason No. 1 and steadily slipped as the season went along. With just one more week remaining before the final rankings are released, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit has the same four teams in his Playoff prediction.

After Florida State’s 27-2 victory over Florida, the Seminoles moved into the 10th position. It was done before the conference championships, as is my practice, because it is supposed to be based on the body of work, and the vote will not be revealed. DeShone Kizer is completing 64.3 percent of his passes for 2,362 yards, 18 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

How could Texas deserve, in 2004, a trip to the Rose Bowl more than a Cal team that had not been there since 1959? Alabama, a double-digit favorite over Florida in the Southeastern Conference championship, is also in with a win.

Panic-stricken athletic directors, however, flush with TV broadcast money they can’t begin to know how to spend wisely, have been driven over the lunatic ledge.

“Certainly there’s a lot going on New Year’s Eve and we all recognize that, but we live in a world where fans can access those games wherever they are”, Ben-Hanan adds. There is no 24-17 loss to Texas (4-7), ala Oklahoma.

The controversy this year isn’t at Alabama, which lost at home to Mississippi. The Tide won the title in the 2009, 2011 and 2012 seasons. Glad you asked. Here, we present the teams with the best shot at raising the title trophy in January and a few that will be left on the outside. Miles, it turns out, is staying. The Cardinal has some business of its own to settle in Saturday’s Pac-12 title game against USC. A season of more than three months comes down to one weekend.

The playoff, by contrast, has no one to gather around its Monday-morning water cooler.

The playoff committee’s job is to select the four best teams in the nation. All it takes is a friendly bounce or two to resuscitate a playoff campaign. Oklahoma settled the Big 12 issue by pasting Oklahoma State on Saturday.

A blowout win over rival Oklahoma State on Saturday night in the de facto Big 12 title game surely locked up a spot in the tournament for the Sooners.

Path to the Playoff: Beat No. 11 Oklahoma State today to capture the Big 12 championship and ideally see Stanford beat Notre Dame. While Alabama’s overall resume features more wins against good teams, Clemson gets the edge in big victories with wins against Notre Dame and Florida State. There’s a chance the Crimson Tide moves up to No. 1, but if it doesn’t have this week, it won’t after the championship games if Clemson beats North Carolina.

So would either the Cardinal or the Buckeyes enter the top four if Clemson or Alabama loses? The fact that the Buckeyes looked like the mightiest team in the land last Saturday, yet probably won’t make the playoff, reinforces one of the glories of the sport: You can blow so much in a single afternoon. Ohio State (11-1) 7. First, they have 2 losses and them, and if Iowa and Clemson lose, then 4 teams would have 1 loss that I’d be jumping them over.

North Carolina was ranked 14th in last week’s poll.

Coaching chaos, though, may continue unabated nationally until late December or, locally, until whenever USC coach Clay Helton loses his next game.