Buckeyes At No. 2 In Latest CFP Rankings, Four B1G Teams In Top Five

The second iteration of the College Football Playoffs rankings have been released and Ohio State is once again sitting at No. 2 behind No. 1 Oregon. The Texas Longhorns are No. 3 and they are followed by Big Ten programs Penn State at No. 4 and Indiana at No. 5.

The current bracket projections have Ohio State hosting 12-seed Boise State in the first round of the CFP.

The Georgia Bulldogs fell all the way from No. 3 last week to No. 12 this week. They are now the first team out of the playoffs. They host No. 7 Tennessee this week, so with a win they would likely jump back into the fold.

The entire rankings can be found below. Following the rankings release, CFP Committee Chair Warde Manuel answered questions from the media via a teleconference. The highlights of everything that was said can be found below.

• Talk about how the committee looks at early losses and early wins, such as Notre Dame’s bad loss to Northern Illinois. They start each week with a clean slate and look at the body of work for every team. They don’t give more credence to an early win or early loss or late win or late loss. It’s all body of work.
• Why did Georgia fall so far? How much of a factor is strength of schedule because Georgia’s is really high? They look at SOS in every comparison that they do.
• Did Texas jump up because of the losses ahead of them? Even though they haven’t beaten a ranked team, do they get credit for scheduling the defending national champions? Yes, they moved up because the teams ahead of them lost, but also because of their play this season.
• The Georgia offense hasn’t been consistent. They have been struggling with turnovers. The loss to Ole Miss factored heavily into the drop, but they have not been playing well overall of late. Alabama and Ole Miss both beat them, so they fell to 12.
• Knoxville writer asks why Tennessee didn’t move up and IU and BYU did, did the injury to the QB play a part? No, that had nothing to do with it. Indiana and BYU had good wins. The Hoosiers have been playing very well. They have dominated every game but one. BYU is undefeated. Two wins over Top 25 opponents.
• Thoughts on Boise State’s most-recent performance? They won against Nevada and they’ve been having a great season. They fell back a spot but that’s more related to what teams did behind them. It wasn’t anything against Boise State’s win. It was more about how everything fell ahead of them and teams behind them like Ole Miss moving ahead of them.
• On Army and Tulane in the AAC title stretch: They have both had successful seasons. The strength of schedule is not as strong as others. Army has dominated until this past week against North Texas, who has one of the best offenses in the conference and Army held them to 3 points. Tulane has now won seven games in a row after some early losses.
• On South Carolina being ahead of LSU despite LSU beating the Gamecocks? It really came down to the committee feeling like since that game, the two teams have gone in different directions. They do look at head to head, but it is just one point of evaluation. In this case, they also looked at the body of work. So they factored in everything, in particular where those teams are now since that game was played early in the season.
• Thoughts on Ole Miss moving up, how big was winning by a lot? “Well, it was an impressive win.” Dominating on both sides of the ball against Georgia. They also have the win over South Carolina. Close loss to Kentucky and an overtime loss to LSU.
• What was the defining justification for keeping Boise State and SMU out of the top 12, as opposed to a team like Alabama? They are having great seasons and have lost to teams in the Top 6. They also looked at their bodies of work as it relates to who they played and how they played. Boise State had a 7-point win over Nevada. SMU didn’t play this past week. So they judged it on the performance overall, and also compared them to the other teams in their grouping. They spent a lot of time discussing 6-7 teams within that grouping.
• On why Georgia and Miami is where they’re at compared to each other: Miami only has one loss, so that played a factor in it. Georgia Tech is coming on, so they are now healthy and they’re a better team than they’ve been most of the season. It was a close loss compared to a decisive win for Ole Miss over Georgia.
• What is the differentiator between Miami and SMU when SMU’s loss is better? Both teams are very solid teams. They have factored in who they have played and who they have beaten. “We just felt that in looking at Miami and SMU, that Miami’s offense is very dominant in terms of how they’ve been winning.” They haven’t been as consistent defensively. Both offenses have been very good. But based on the body of work, the feeling is that Miami was ahead of SMU.
• Since none of the teams in the top six are from the group of SEC teams that won four of the last five national titles, when you do the eye test, do you ask yourself who would win head to head? No. They don’t do hypotheticals and they don’t predict what would happen in the future.

College Football Playoff Rankings

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Dropped from rankings: Iowa State 17, Pittsburgh 18

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