The College Football Playoff picture is continuing to (mostly) become clearer as the weeks go by, with the sport’s elite separating themselves with each passing game.
Week 11 was no different, as contenders like Texas A&M, Ohio State, Texas Tech and Georgia cruised to comfortable wins while Oregon, Indiana and Alabama survived upset bids. And with the first CFP rankings having been released last Tuesday, fans are now eagerly awaiting the weekly reveal as the bracket begins to take a rough shape.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich released her Sunday projection of the field following the weekend’s action, and she included 6 SEC teams in her top 12, but only 5 qualified for the bracket.
The undefeated Aggies are Dinich’s highest ranked SEC squad at No. 3, with them sliding just behind Indiana and Ohio State. The reasoning for that being that the committee said it believes TAMU’s defensive statistics pale in comparison to the Hoosiers’ and Buckeyes’, although Dinich pointed out that this weekend’s results could change that.
Though Indiana was fortunate to escape Penn State with a win, Texas A&M went on the road and beat the committee’s No. 22 team soundly, scoring 24 points in the second half against Mizzou.
Alabama and Georgia remained static at No. 4 and No. 5 respectively, and she has one-loss Ole Miss in front of Texas Tech at the No. 6 spot. With Tulane’s win over Memphis on Friday night, the Rebels’ strength of schedule is only getting better.
The Rebels’ 45-10 win against Tulane on Sept. 20 continues to enhance their overall record strength, even though it’s not a CFP top 25 win. The Green Wave earned an important win at Memphis on Friday, keeping their playoff hopes alive. Tulane also beat Northwestern and Duke this season, and the committee pays attention to opponents’ opponents (yes, you read that right).
Rounding out the included SEC teams are Texas at No. 10 and Oklahoma at No. 11. With the Longhorns owning the head-to-head advantage over the Sooners, they figure to remain in front for the foreseeable future, which means they would also be the only Red River team to make the playoff. At the 11th spot, OU would get bounced out the bracket in favor of the ACC Champion or the Group of Five’s representative.
If the playoff were today, Oklahoma would still be bumped out of the field during the seeding process to make room for the ACC champion, which is still projected to be ranked outside of the committee’s top 12 but guaranteed a spot as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions.
Here is Dinich’s top 12:
- Ohio State
- Indiana
- Texas A&M
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Ole Miss
- Texas Tech
- Oregon
- Notre Dame
- Texas
- Oklahoma (ACC champion Georgia Tech No. 11 seed in CFP)
- BYU (American champion USF No. 12 seed in CFP)
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
