College Football Playoff Rankings Week 9

A crazy night for college football with the first set of College Football Playoff Rankings this season, right after week nine. Everyone’s played eight games and almost everyone, with the exception of five teams, have lost one game. Now you’d think this process was easier than last time because, well we have five undefeated teams and four of those five are real contenders for the playoffs. Not so much so let’s see what the AP and CFP Polls do and don’t have in common. Starting off with number one on the same side:

Number 1, The number 1 team, Alabama. Does this make Alabama a bigger target for teams to set their sights on, future opponents, LSU in a few days, Auburn maybe even Florida in the SEC Championship? Or does this make them a bigger threat and a scarier team than everyone thought? Oh these guys got it on lock, and look at who they’ve played and how much success those teams have had after Alabama put the smack down on them- Texas A&M, hasn’t had any competition since Alabama, will they hold up against Ole Miss at the end of the season? Tennessee, after their loss to Bama they go lose a gimme to South Carolina and lose their running back. So much for the SEC East this year, for the tenth year in a row.

Number 2, Big XII Teams in the 10’s, not many Big XII teams in the top 10, most are in the teens, are they gonna advance much with what’s left of the season? Will they fall off completely and the Big 10 and SEC have a takeover?

Number 3, Tennessee falls off, looks like they’ve just fallen off the face of the Earth at this point, three straight losses, three straight in-conference losses, and they lose all hope of controlling the SEC East this year and their star RB Jalen Hurd. What’s next for Tennessee and Butch Jones? Looks like Butch might be on the hot seat soon enough.

Number 4, Ohio State Sixth, stuck just behind the bracket, what happens to the Buckeyes from here, they’ve got Michigan State, and Michigan in Columbus. What could happen, what will happen, what seed are they after Thanksgiving Weekend?

Here’s the biggest differences:

Number 1, Washington who? Texas A&M even with a loss is in over Washington in the CFB Playoff Poll, they’ve got the stronger schedule than Washington and Ohio State, their one loss is to the number one team in the nation, in Bryant-Denny Stadium, you gotta give it to the Aggies they’ve had one of the hardest schedules we’ve seen all year, third strongest schedule in the top 10, only behind Clemson and Alabama.

Number 2, Who is number 2? Michigan? Or Clemson? Both teams have been fighting hard all year, very very hard all year, and it seems that Michigan’s had a better year than Clemson so far but Clemson’s schedule and the teams they have to play, are so much harder than Michigan’s that I just have to agree with the committee, Clemson is at number 2

Number 3, Where is Louisville? And, are they a legitimate playoff contender being on the same side of the ACC as Clemson or do they drop out of the chatter from here? Being on the same side may deem it impossible for them to get in the bracket but we’ll see what happens, Clemson still has an ACC Championship game to play, maybe their luck finally runs out.

Number 4, What will happen to all these potential number 4’s? We’ve got three teams who are true contenders right now, Texas A&M, Washington, and Ohio State but we still have one-loss Louisville, two-loss Wisconsin, we can go all the way as far back as rank 12 Penn State having a shot in the playoffs. So many teams have many games left and if I were any of these teams from rank 15 to 5, play hard, play your best football, and win out the season. Knock somebody off, get your name out there and make that committee put your team in the playoffs, I’m talking to you Penn State, West Virginia, Baylor- who has been in the talks the past two years and hasn’t made it either time.

There’s still a lot of the season left and a lot to cover- a lot of tough games and we have a few contenders who will step on the field with each other at the end of the season- Alabama and Auburn, Michigan and Ohio State, Clemson’s gotta win out including the ACC Championship, Louisville has to win out to stay in the talks, and Washington just has to keep doing what they’ve been doing all season which is blowing teams out and not giving up anything easy. Still so many games to be played in the College Football universe and it’s gonna be a wild ride for some of these teams.