The College Football Playoff will be set next weekend, which means Tuesday night’s rankings gave us all a bit of a preview of what to expect from the selection committee. While Penn State won’t sniff the playoff this season, the Nittany Lions are sitting in a good spot to go to another New Years Six bowl game.
Penn State moved up to no. 10 in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings. The Nittany Lions benefitted from a loss by Louisville, who will get a chance to move back up with a game against Florida State in this week’s ACC championship game.
At no. 10 with conference championships games coming up this weekend, Penn State has an excellent chance to be playing in a New Years Six bowl game, no matter how the conference championship games play out. After the top four teams are selected for the College Football Playoff, there are still four bowl games that need to fill bowl spots. Only one spot is guaranteed to the ACC with a spot in the Orange Bowl. And one spot will be reserved for the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion. The Orange Bowl spot will go to either Florida State or Louisville, and Tulane is ahead of Liberty for the non-power conference spot. So that leaves 6 spots to fill. Penn State is in a good spot.
The top four teams this week are Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and Florida State, respectively. Ohio State was hit hard by the committee by falling from no. 2 down to no. 6 by the selection committee. That was a bit of a stunner given how close they lost on the road at Michigan this past weekend.
Ohio State’s drop is great news for the Pac-12, as the winner of the Pac-12 conference championship game between Washington and Oregon is all but assured a spot in the playoff. Ohio State’s only hope appears to be Oregon topping Washington and Florida State losing to Louisville in the ACC Championship Game. Neither is that far-fetched.
Here is this week’s College Football Playoff Top 25:
- Georgia
- Michigan
- Washington
- Florida State
- Oregon
- Ohio State
- Texas
- Alabama
- Missouri
- Penn State
- Ole Miss
- Oklahoma
- LSU
- Louisville
- Arizona
- Iowa
- Notre Dame
- Oklahoma State
- NC DState
- Oregon State
- Tennessee
- Tuulane
- Clemson
- Liberty
- Kansas State
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