The chatter around College Football Playoff rankings never really takes a rest.
The first official CFP rankings of 2024 won’t be revealed until Tuesday, Nov. 5., but the “projected” College Football Playoff rankings are pretty much a year-round thing, especially once the regular season starts. ESPN’s Heather Dinich weighed in with her thoughts on the playoff race after a week of upsets that included No. 5 Notre Dame’s shocking home loss to Northern Illinois last Saturday.
Over at CBS Sports, college football analyst Brad Crawford updated his projected playoff rankings and matchups after Week 2 and has Georgia and Ohio State as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, respectively. Miami was his No. 3 seed and projected ACC champion with Iowa State jumping into the No. 4 spot as the projected Big 12 champion.
Crawford’s projected first-round, on-campus matchups include No. 5 seed Texas hosting No. 12 seed Texas State (the highest-ranked Group of Five participant in his forecast), as well as No. 11 seed USC traveling to Oxford to face No. 6 seed Ole Miss, No. 10 seed Tennessee facing No. 7 seed Oregon in Eugene, and No. 9 seed Penn State visiting Tuscaloosa to play No. 8 seed Alabama.
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Clemson is currently on the outside looking in from Crawford’s perspective. But the Tigers, he writes, have a good chance to bolster their résumé in the weeks ahead, especially if they take care of business against rival NC State on Sept. 21 in Death Valley.
Crawford writes:
“Clemson has a chance to reappear in these playoff projections in the coming weeks. The Tigers turned back a season-opening loss to Georgia over the weekend with an annihilation of Appalachian State and they’re open in Week 3 prior to hosting NC State. Dabo Swinney’s group should be favored in every regular-season matchup the rest of the way with Florida State falling apart and Virginia Tech not playing as well as advertised.”
Kickoff for NC State-Clemson is scheduled for noon ET on Sept. 21. The game will be broadcast on ABC.
Clemson is ranked No. 20 in this week’s US LBM Coaches Poll.
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