College Football Playoff mock selection committee ranks top contenders

Who’s in and who’s out?

It’s such a premature question looking at the College Football Playoff, but after two weeks, there’s a better idea of how teams can be projected to finish this season.

Cleveland.com put together a mock selection committee that ranked the top contenders. Here’s how the website describes its mock selection committee and rankings:

For the second year, our mock committee of 13 members, featuring college football writers from Michigan to Oregon, from Louisiana to Massachusetts, from Alabama to Ohio, will offer a weekly glimpse of how the committee might act.

From last year’s experience, when TCU went from No. 3 to No. 6 in the final rankings and Ohio State went from No. 5 to No. 4, that might be difficult to determine.

The hope this year is to simulate the committee experience as much as possible and provide you some of the discussion. That conversation will evolve each week as teams build their resumes.

Here is the committee’s picks after two weeks:

• No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 4 TCU in the Orange Bowl
• No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl

Here are the teams ranked:

In the playoff

1. Ohio State (118)
2. Alabama (105)
3. Michigan State (86)
4. TCU (84)

First four out
5. USC (43)
6. Baylor (39)
7. UCLA (32)
8. Notre Dame (31)

Outsider to watch
12. LSU (12)

Kevin Duffey

A graduate of the University of Florida and founder of Saturday Down South, Kevin is a college football enthusiast.