The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday night, setting the table for conference championship week and Sunday’s final rankings.
Rivalry week created some change atop the rankings and the playoff picture for local teams appears to be clearing up. Texas Tech and Oklahoma essentially locked up playoff bids with their wins over the weekend, but there is still some more to be decided this weekend.
Here are three takeaways from the latest CFP rankings.
ACC’s disaster scenario realized
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After SMU fell to California, blowing a chance to go to the ACC championship game and College Football Playoff, the ACC’s worst fears were realized. Because of SMU’s loss and other ACC results, 7-5 Duke punched its ticket to the ACC title game via tiebreaker.
North Texas and James Madison finally appeared in the rankings at No. 24 and No. 25, respectively, meaning the Mean Green’s American Conference championship bout with No. 20 Tulane is a de facto CFP play-in game. If James Madison handles Troy in its conference title game, JMU and the American Conference champion figure to be ranked above the ACC champion if Duke beats No. 17 Virginia, meaning the ACC’s winner would fail to qualify as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions.
The ACC being completely left out of the playoff, an idea that seemed extremely far-fetched, appears to be a Duke victory away from becoming a reality.
Longhorns do Red Raiders a favor
For as much as Texas Tech fans may detest Texas, they owe the Longhorns some gratitude.
With Texas’ win over Texas A&M, the Aggies fell from No. 3 to No. 7 and the Red Raiders slid up a spot to No. 4. This positions Texas Tech to finish as one of the four highest-ranked teams and receive a first-round bye if it beats No. 11 BYU in the Big 12 title game. Of note, it seems the final playoff spot will come down to No. 10 Notre Dame and No. 11 BYU, so the Red Raiders will have their hands full with a team playing for its playoff life Saturday.
While a first-round playoff game in Lubbock would be a scene that would be etched in Texas Tech history, newly extended Joey McGuire would probably prefer some extra rest, a Big 12 championship and a punched ticket to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, despite its upset win over Texas A&M …
Texas appears to be out
There doesn’t appear to be a viable path for the 9-3 Longhorns to make the CFP, despite Steve Sarkisian saying Texas being left out would be a “disservice” to college football after Texas topped A&M.
Texas checked in at No. 13 this week, three spots behind what appears to be the at-large cutline at No. 10. The Longhorns are behind No. 12 Miami, No. 11 BYU and No. 10 Notre Dame. With Texas, Miami and Notre Dame all idle on conference championship week, it’s hard to envision Texas doing anything to jump those teams without playing this week.
The Longhorns’ best chance for an at-large bid involved a significant amount of upsets during rivalry week, but Miami, BYU, Notre Dame, Alabama and Oklahoma all took care of business Saturday. Now, all Texas can do is plead its case and hope the committe has a massive change of heart before Sunday.
Full rankingsRankTeamRecordPrevious ranking1Ohio State12-012Indiana12-023Georgia11-144Texas Tech11-155Oregon11-166Ole Miss11-177Texas A&M11-138Oklahoma10-289Alabama10-21010Notre Dame10-2911BYU11-11112Miami10-21213Texas9-31614Vanderbilt10-21415Utah10-21316USC9-31717Virginia10-21818Arizona9-32519Michigan9-31520Tulane10-22421Houston9-3NR22Georgia Tech9-32323Iowa8-4NR24North Texas11-1NR25James Madison11-1NRNorth Texas hiring Texas assistant Neal Brown as Mean Green’s next head coachTexas Tech head coach Joey McGuire agrees to contract extension with Red Raiders
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