With the top five teams in last week’s college football playoff standings holding serve after last week’s wins, the third edition of the CFP Top 25, released Tuesday night, was largely quiet. Defending national champion Georgia, also undefeated Ohio State, Michigan and TCU are the No. 1 seeds if today’s tiebreaker decides which will be a four-team field.
Tennessee, which arrived in Georgia two weeks ago with its own stain, is the fifth team. Volunteers will have a chance to play all the way to the playoffs given the strength of their victories. Village. Reminder: All but one team finished No. 1 in the starting CFP standings for one season and eventually made the playoffs (Mississippi State, 2014).
However, a spot in the CFP block is not a sure thing, as winning the conference championship game won’t give them a chance to earn further credit in the eyes of the CFP selection committee. That possibility remains no. 6 for LSU, which is looking to become the first two-loss team in event history to earn a CFP bid. The first Pac-12 team to make the playoffs since 2016-17, No. 7 USC is the target, while No. 9 Clemson appears to get through the rest of the season unscathed; It’s the ACC brothers who lose No. 13 to overcome North Carolina, who have strong chances of making it to CFP.
Most notable is the change in the ranking order for the first group of five projects aiming for a place in the New Year’s six. With a 38-31 head-to-head win over the weekend, UCF (now No. 20) edged past Tulane (now No. 21) to clinch the top seed that time out.
Top-ranked Washington moved up 8 spots to 17th after beating Oregon, who dropped 6 spots to 12th.
Let’s take a look at the top 25 in all CFP rankings. Below is bowl expert Jerry Baum’s analysis.
College football playoff standings, Nov. 15
- Georgia (10-0)
- state of Ohio (10-0)
- Michigan (10-0)
- TCU extension (10-0)
- Tennessee (9-1)
- LSU (8-2)
- USC (9-1)
- Alabama (8-2)
- Clemson (9-1)
- Utah (8-2)
- state of pennsylvania (8-2)
- Oregon (8-2)
- North Carolina (9-1)
- be missed (8-2)
- state of Kansas (7-3)
- University of California at Los Angeles (8-2)
- Washington (8-2)
- our Lady (7-3)
- state of florida (7-3)
- UCF (8-2)
- tulan (8-2)
- state of oklahoma (7-3)
- State of Oregon (7-3)
- State of North Carolina (7-3)
- Cincinnati (8-2)
Analysis by bowling expert Jerry Baum
The only change in the top 10 this week was the vacancy of the former Oregon, which allowed LSU, USC, Alabama and Clemson to pick up spots. Utah enters the top 10 before facing the Ducks in the Pac-12 Championship Game contest.
There are only five teams controlling their destiny in the search for a place in the quadrangle, but they are not the top five teams in the table. The top four control their own destiny, but Tennessee doesn’t. That’s because if LSU beats Georgia, the Tigers will make the top four and the Vols will be out of luck.
Tennessee could be beaten by a 12-1 champion from another conference, most likely USC if the Trojans can pull it off. Their remaining schedule includes three ranked teams: UCLA, vs. Notre Dame and the Pac-12 title game. ACC winner Clemson-North Carolina will also play, but is less likely to finish in the top four.
Cincinnati makes its first appearance of the season at 25th in the standings. The Bearcats are the third ranked AAC team. At this point the five representatives to the Cotton Bowl could come from Cincy, UCF and Tulane. The Bearcats host the Green Wave to close out the regular season, with the winner traveling to Orlando to face the Knights for the AAC championship.
