Well, that was something.

Three of the top 6 teams in the Playoff poll lost, which essentially means that last Tuesday’s rankings are very much a thing of the past. Résumés have shifted dramatically, and we’re going to have an entirely new set of Playoff arguments to break down.

Fortunately, you’ve come to the right place for that.

Normally, I research 3 stats for any Power 5 team with 0 or 1 loss. Today, however, I’m adding LSU to that group as a 2-loss team with a Playoff path because it controls its path in the SEC West with possibly Georgia waiting in the conference championship. I’ve removed the likes of Alabama and Illinois, both of which suffered loss No. 2 to likely end any shot at a Playoff berth.

As a reminder, these are the parameters I refer to when I break them down among the contenders:

  • Wins vs. current AP Top 25 teams
  • Wins vs. Power 5 teams with a winning record
  • Average scoring differential vs. Power 5

With that in mind, here’s how I think the top 10 of the Playoff poll will shake out on Tuesday night (7 pm, ESPN):

10. Alabama

Would I put Alabama in this spot? No. The Tide’s lone win against a current AP Top 25 team came at Texas, where Quinn Ewers went down and Alabama still needed a game-winning field goal in the final minute. That résumé has issues because, well, it’s not Playoff-worthy. Sure, there are “high-quality losses,” but a 2-loss team with an extremely narrow path to a conference championship isn’t in the Playoff discussion. However, as we saw from the selection committee ranking 1-loss Alabama over unbeaten TCU, I’d expect Nick Saban’s squad to get the benefit of the doubt.

9. USC

Fun fact: You and I have as many wins against the current AP Top 25 as USC. Zero. Zip. Nada. The Trojans’ best win is at 3-loss Oregon State. Granted, the schedule is extremely backloaded with a game at UCLA in Week 12 and the Notre Dame showdown to close the season. But USC’s current issue is that it doesn’t control its path to the Pac-12 Championship. It would still need a Utah loss at Oregon just to clear the way for a potential Pac-12 Championship showdown against the Ducks. For now, though, I expect a UCLA team with 2 wins over current AP Top 25 foes to jump Lincoln Riley’s squad.

8. UCLA

Going from No. 12 to 8 would feel like an extreme jump for a team that simply won by 2 touchdowns against a 3-win Arizona State squad, but this is more about what happened to the likes of Alabama and Clemson while USC’s résumé continues to come into question. The Bruins have those 2 aforementioned wins against current AP Top 25 foes with Washington now back into the rankings, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the selection committee have the realization that they have a better résumé than their Los Angeles neighbors.

7. LSU

Here is where it gets interesting. We know based on the first ranking that beating Alabama is held in such high regard by the selection committee. That’ll help Brian Kelly’s squad after it was a surprising top-10 party crasher in the first Playoff poll. LSU also has the blowout win against Ole Miss working in its favor. The only team with more wins against Power 5 teams with winning records is Tennessee, which has 5 (LSU has 4). Will it upset the masses that a 2-loss team is ranked so high? Sure, but if you actually care to look at the quality wins, the Tigers are absolutely worthy.

6. Oregon

I believe that the selection committee is somewhat forgiving of that 46-point Georgia loss in Atlanta. Showing up at No. 8 in the first Playoff poll was a sign that perhaps the selection committee was going to give Oregon the benefit of the doubt for bouncing back in such convincing fashion. The UCLA win continues to be the biggest feather in Dan Lanning’s cap. Oregon’s only other win against a Power 5 team with a winning record was at 5-4 Washington State, where the Ducks got some late Bo Nix magic to take the lead with 81 seconds left. But the good news for Oregon was that Georgia pummeling Tennessee means the Dawgs’ likelihood of occupying that No. 4 spot and boxing out the Ducks is significantly less. That could have been the case, though, had Tennessee won and left an 11-1 Georgia squad competing for the No. 4 spot in the final rankings.

5. TCU

For what it’s worth, I’d rank TCU ahead of Michigan. I’d have no problem with the Horned Frogs occupying the No. 4 spot, and I wouldn’t even but that opposed to them cracking the top 3 ahead of 1-loss Tennessee. Why? TCU has 4 wins against Power 5 teams with winning records compared to just 2 for Michigan, and they both have the same amount of wins against the current AP Top 25. But I expect TCU to come in behind the Vols after we watched the Horned Frogs fall right behind 1-loss Alabama last week when the Tide’s lone loss was to the No. 1 team in America on the road. The same will be true of Tennessee this week.

4. Tennessee

I’ve got some good news for Tennessee. As frustrating as Saturday was, the résumé is still rock solid. Nobody has more wins against Power 5 teams with winning records (5) among Playoff contenders, and the 2 wins against AP Top 25 teams should still be a major asset because they were against Alabama and at SEC West leader LSU. We know that the selection committee valued the pre-Georgia résumé based on that first No. 1 ranking. There’s a chance the Vols are outside of the top 4 in the second Playoff poll, but even if that were the case, the Vols should still be the top 1-loss team in the field, which now has just 4 remaining unbeatens with 4 weekends of football left — .

3. Michigan

I’m not high on Michigan’s résumé. In just its 2nd game outside of Ann Arbor in 2022, Michigan was trailing in the middle of the 3rd quarter at Rutgers. But do I expect the selection committee to dub it a blowout win despite the criticism of TCU getting off to slow starts last week? Absolutely. The Wolverines will slide up with Clemson and Tennessee both suffering that first loss even though their best win was at home against Penn State, which is the only win against a current AP Top 25 team. I doubt we see the Wolverines jump Ohio State when they had their hands full with Rutgers for the majority of the day.

2. Ohio State

Ugly. That’s the only way to describe Ohio State’s rock fight in the bad weather conditions at Northwestern. Is that an excuse? It shouldn’t be. Against a Northwestern team that hasn’t won a game on this continent in 2022, the offense again looked stagnant. Will that have any actual long-term implications on the Buckeyes’ Playoff résumé? Probably not. But it should’ve quieted any notion that Ohio State deserves the top spot. The good news for the Buckeyes was that Clemson falling to a Notre Dame team it already beat should help the 1-loss argument, and Ohio State won’t have to worry about battling a potential 1-loss Alabama team, either. Amidst all the chaos of Week 10, the Buckeyes should be the lone top-6 team that stands pat.

1. Georgia

I mean, is there any doubt? There are statements, and then there’s what Georgia did to Tennessee on Saturday. The No. 1 ranked offense was held without either a touchdown or a gain of 20 yards for the first 55 minutes of action. Mind you, this was the group that had 34 points in 11 consecutive games and had 54 scrimmage plays of 20 yards in the first 8 games. It was as good of a defensive performance as there’s been in the Playoff era. It should’ve all but locked up a Playoff spot for Georgia, who has now won 27 of its last 28 games. More importantly for this year, it has 2 convincing wins vs. current AP Top 10 teams and 4 against Power 5 teams with winning records. On top of that, Georgia has an average scoring margin vs. Power 5 competition of +30.6, which is 5 points per game better than Ohio State and 10 points better than Michigan.

There’s no question who the top Dawg is.