Notre Dame Improves to #4 in Playoff Rankings

Ohio State (9-0) remained at No. 3 with Notre Dame (8-1) moving in to the No. 4 position.

Notre Dame fans should also keep an eye on Iowa.

Unbeaten Iowa received an eye-catching promotion, rising four spots to No. 5.

ESPN’s Football Power Index has Baylor as the second-best team in FBS (formerly Division I-A) and Notre Dame all the way down at No. 9. LSU fell out of the top four after losing 30-16 to Alabama on Saturday, dropping from No. 2 to No. 9. Unbeaten Iowa and Baylor ranked No. 5 and 6, respectively.

The order of the Top 4 is debatable, but the committee has made at least one thing clear- if Clemson sweeps the remainder of its season, it will be one of those four teams.

“It’s a recognition by the committee that they were increasingly impressed by Iowa and their body of work”, Long said.

This is the second week of the second year of this poll, and it seems we are still learning what the committee puts the most weight on when it comes to ranking the teams.

Last week, Long said the committee had concerns about Iowa’s offense.

“We did not block them”, Miles said flatly. While they have not been flashy, they have been solid on both sides of the ball.

The college football season has a long ways to go, but if the season were to end today, the College Football Playoff committee’s top-4 teams has one glaring mistake, Notre Dame is in and Baylor is not.

Despite a poor showing against Minnesota, Ohio State remains in the top four this week.

Who will be this week’s Oklahoma State and pull off a win that the oddsmakers aren’t expecting them to pull off?

Because if for a few reason the Irish don’t make the CFP, it’s likely because of what someone like Baylor or Oklahoma State just might do between now and December 6th.

2nd best scenario: MSU wins out, LSU loses to Arkansas, Alabama beats Auburn, Arkansas beats Missouri.

The Cowboys’ fate is in their own hands. It’s a fact, a conclusion that we can make even with three weeks remaining on the Big Ten regular-season calendar. The defending national champions have been first since the preseason, when they became the first team to be a unanimous preseason No. 1 in the 79-year history of the AP rankings. Stanford hosts OR and Cal the next two weekends before the Irish come to town for that potential Thanksgiving weekend elimination game. You still mean to tell me that they are not better than all these two loss programs (Mississippi State, Northwestern, for example) and behind a team like Memphis, who just got blown out at home by Navy. It’s interesting to see undefeated Houston of the American conference ranked below Temple, Memphis and Navy, all one loss teams from the conference, but either way, it won’t get any of them into the semifinals.