CFP rankings leave wiggle room for idle teams, Notre Dame wins beauty contest

The College Football Playoff committee made one thing perfectly clear on Tuesday night: nothing is perfectly clear.

Unlike last season, the potential exists for teams that are not playing in league title games to move up or down in the rankings.

“Yes,” CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said on a conference call, “idle teams can move based on the results of the championship games.”

Cutting to the chase, that means if Alabama — ranked No. 9 this week — loses to Georgia in the SEC championship game at 4 p.m. on Saturday, there’s a chance a 10-3 Tide could fall behind current No. 10-ranked Notre Dame (10-2).

That would be significant because the Irish are the final at-large team in the field and are themselves in danger of being knocked out of the field if No. 11 BYU (11-1) were to upset No. 4 Texas Tech (11-1) in the Big 12 championship game.

Clean at the top

The most clarity in this newest set of CFP rankings is at the top, where undefeated teams Ohio State (12-0) and Indiana (12-0) hold the top two spots and will meet in the Big Ten championship game on Saturday.

The winner of that game will stay No. 1, and the loser will likely fall no lower than No. 3.

Georgia (11-1), currently No. 3, could move ahead of the loser of the Big Ten championship game into the No. 2 spot with a win over the Crimson Tide, based on the Bulldogs having superior schedule strength.

Yurachek twice mentioned Georgia’s strength of schedule when referring to the Bulldogs current rank, including when asked by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how UGA measures up to current No. 4 Texas Tech (11-1).

“That was a place where we had some significant debate, as well,” Yurachek said of the Georgia-Texas Tech comparison. “Two really strong 11-win teams. You look at Georgia, they’ve got wins over Texas, Tennessee — who was previously ranked — Ole Miss, and this past weekend against a ranked Georgia Tech, (and) their one loss came at home against Alabama.

“Then you’ve got Texas Tech who’s got wins over Top-25 teams Utah, BYU and Houston. They’ve got a loss to an unranked Arizona State team, albeit with (Texas Tech playing with) their backup quarterback.

“But both of these are really, really strong teams, and Georgia got the nod just based on their strength of schedule and the wins that they have versus Texas Tech.”

About Lane Kiffin’s exit

If Georgia were to lose to Alabama in the SEC championship game, the Bulldogs would not be likely to fall below current No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1), as UGA beat the Rebels 43-35 earlier this season.

Ole Miss was not affected in the rankings by the loss of head coach Lane Kiffin, who was hired by LSU and no longer leads the team, Yurachek said.

“It’s impossible for us at this time as a committee to evaluate what the impact is on losing your head coach, specifically at Ole Miss, because we don’t have a game that we can compare Ole Miss with Lane Kiffin versus without him.”

Controversial pleas

Yurachek spent a good part of the call explaining why CFP hopefuls Texas (9-3) and Miami (10-2) did not crack the top 10 of the 12-team CFP field for a potential at-large spot.

In the case of the three-loss Longhorns pleading their case of one of their losses coming on the road to No. 1-ranked Ohio State, Yurachek referred to Texas’ road loss at unranked Florida as most damaging to their resume.

“It’s not that Texas played Ohio State,” he said, “It is Texas’ loss to Florida that’s holding them back now.”

As for Miami having the same 10-2 record as Notre Dame and being ranked lower than the Irish despite beating them head to head, Yurachek essentially said it was a beauty contest.

“Notre Dame is the winners of 10 straight, (and) during that 10-game winning streak, they’ve outscored their opponents roughly 440 to 143,” he said. “They’ve been very consistent offensively in how they run the ball, in how they pass the ball, very explosive offensively.”

The committee has BYU at No. 11, sandwiched between Notre Dame and No. 12 Miami, which Yurachek indicated somewhat mitigates the head-to-head result.

“Miami … when we had our first poll (Nov. 4), they came into our poll losers of two of three games, and so they were inserted at 18,” Yurachek said. “They’ve really climbed faster than any other team during the past four or five weeks, up six spots. They’ve won four consecutive games. Carson Beck has been phenomenal, completing 80% of his passes at roughly 1,100 yards and 11 TDs during that time.

“But the committee still felt like right now, Notre Dame deserves to be ranked ahead of BYU and Miami, and BYU deserves to be ranked ahead of Miami.”

Group of Six vs. ACC

The teams seeded No. 11 and No. 12 will almost surely be the two highest-ranked conference championship game winners emerging from the ACC, American Conference or Sun Belt who get in via automatic bids.

The top five ranked conference champions get automatic bids, and the three from the Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 are shoo-ins.

The No. 11 and No. 12 spots bear watching as the ACC, a Power 4 conference, stands a chance of not having a team make the field.

Duke, despite a 7-5 overall record, won a five-team conference tiebreaker that included No. 12 Miami for second place and will play No. 17 Virginia (10-2) in the ACC championship game.

If the unranked Blue Devils were to win, at 8-5 there’s a chance they would not be ranked higher than the winner of the American Conference championship game between No. 20 Tulane (10-2) and No. 24 North Texas (11-1) or current No. 25 James Madison (11-1) should JMU beat Troy in the Sun Belt championship game

The final rankings will be out at noon on Sunday and set the CFP 12-field, which will begin play with a yet-to-be-determined an on-campus, first-round game at 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19.

The other on-campus first-round games will take place at noon, 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Projected bracket

First-round byes

• No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
• No. 2 Indiana
• No. 3 Georgia (SEC champ)
• No. 4 Texas Tech (Big 12 champ)

First-round games

(Dec. 19-20, campus sites)

• No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 12 Tulane (American champ)
• No. 6 Ole Miss vs. No. 11 Virginia (ACC champ)
• No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Notre Dame
• No. 8 Oklahoma vs. No. 9 Alabama

CFP quarterfinal games

Dec. 31 (Cotton Bowl), Jan. 1 (Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl)

• No. 4 Texas Tech vs. Oregon/Tulane winner
• No. 3 Georgia vs. Ole Miss/Virginia winner
• No. 2 Indiana vs. Notre Dame/Texas A&M winner
• No. 1 Ohio State vs. Oklahoma/Alabama winner

CFP semifinals

• Fiesta Bowl, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 8 teams TBD
• Peach Bowl, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 9 teams TBD

CFP championship game

• Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida, Jan. 19

CFP rankings

1. Ohio State (12-0)

2. Indiana (12-0)

3. Georgia (11-1)

4. Texas Tech (11-1)

5. Oregon (11-1)

6. Ole Miss (11-1)

7. Texas A&M (11-1)

8. Oklahoma (10-2)

9. Alabama (10-2)

10. Notre Dame (10-2)

11. BYU (11-1)

12. Miami (10-2)

13. Texas (9-3)

14. Vanderbilt (10-2)

15. Utah (10-2)

16. USC (9-3)

17. Virginia (10-2)

18. Arizona (9-3)

19. Michigan (9-3)

20. Tulane (10-2)

21. Houston (9-3)

22. Georgia Tech (9-3)

23. Iowa (8-4)

24. North Texas (11-1)

25. James Madison (11-1)