Predicting What Tonight’s College Football Playoff Rankings Will Look Like

At this point, it seems unlikely that a team outside the top 10 could jump into the top four by the end of the season, but odd things do seem to happen.

Oklahoma moved into third and Iowa was fourth in the new College Football Playoff rankings as Notre Dame slipped to No. 6.

Week Twelve of the college football season eliminated three more undefeated teams, as third ranked Ohio State was outplayed by Michigan State at home, Oklahoma State couldn’t keep up with or stop the Baylor Bears and high-powered Houston imploded against upstart UConn. Notre Dame travels to Palo Alto and face No. 9 Stanford, a win is a must, but the Irish need Oklahoma to lose at Oklahoma State to feel truly secure that they’ve done enough to lock up a spot while they sit idle during championship week.

The Oklahoma Sooners have their biggest game of the season on Saturday as they will take on No. 11 Oklahoma State. Should Michigan State win against Penn State, their Big Ten Championship match-up against Iowa will basically be a play-in for the College Football Playoff.

The final ranking will be announced December 6, although current No. 15 Navy could delay the full release of bowl pairings because it plays Army on December 12.

Kelly cited his team’s schedule as the main reason it should be considered, should it win Saturday. Last week’s No. 24 USC team lost, so that win doesn’t look almost as strong now for Notre Dame.

Think the playoff committee has already made its choice in the Oklahoma-Notre Dame debate? In the era of the Big 12 round-robin schedule, Iowa State is a really hard job. This might not bode well for the Big 12, again.

That doesn’t mean, though, that Notre Dame is necessarily looking to not only win at Stanford, but win big. Baylor would be the Big 12 champ by virtue of its win over Oklahoma State.

Baylor moved up to No. 7, Stanford to No. 9 and MI to No. 10.

No. 2 Alabama could somehow falter in its next two games against Auburn or Florida.

Oklahoma, Michigan State, Florida, Baylor, and others, as well.

No. 14 Florida State at No. 10 Florida.

How I see it: Ohio State’s chances of repeating as national champion all but vaporized with its lack of toughness and offensive creativity in the Michigan State loss. If it’s Ohio State, the victor of the Big Ten title game still gets in; if it’s MI and the two-loss Wolverines beat Iowa, the Big Ten probably would be shut out of the playoff.

The league left out of last year’s playoff, and one without a championship game, still has three teams – Oklahoma (No. 5 AP), Baylor (No. 7 AP) and Oklahoma State (No. 9 AP) – alive in the championship chase.

The nightmare chaotic scenario for the committee is if Clemson loses to North Carolina at the ACC Championship Game. A loss combined with an Ole Miss win would give the Rebels the SEC West title and hand Alabama two losses, something even the Tide couldn’t overcome.

The Tigers have lost three straight since topping out at No. 4 on October 31.

Oklahoma (10-1) handled TCU and finishes the regular season at Oklahoma State, which is 11th in the CFP rankings. Now all it has to do is knock off Penn State and beat undefeated Iowa, and it will be in the playoff.