Where does Clemson football sit in the College Football Playoff discussion heading into week six? Here is a look at the Tigers’ position.
It’s about time to start talking about the College Football Playoff with Clemson football.
Obviously, there’s still seven regular season games left and a conference championship before the playoff field is set, but we’ve officially seen a month from each team.
Knowing what we’ve seen the past month, we’re going to give you what we think would be the College Football Playoff poll if it were released this week, an analysis of which teams are still alive in the playoff and what Clemson football needs to do going forward.
First, let’s take a look at the teams that are still alive in the playoff by conference.
*Denotes team is undefeated.*
ACC- Clemson*, Miami, NC State*
Big Ten- Ohio State*, Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State
Big 12- Oklahoma*, West Virginia*, Texas, Oklahoma State
Pac 12- Washington, Oregon, Colorado*, Stanford
SEC- Alabama*, Georgia*, LSU*, Auburn, Kentucky*
Other- Notre Dame*, UCF*
What would the College Football Playoff rankings look like? (Top-10)
- Alabama
- Georgia
- Ohio State
- Clemson
- Notre Dame
- LSU
- Oklahoma
- West Virginia
- Auburn
- Washington
This is what I think the top-10 would look like if it were released today. For those of you saying that Notre Dame or Oklahoma should be ahead of Clemson, that wouldn’t surprise me, but the Tigers do have the nation’s No. 5 strength of record and are No. 5 in the FPI. I think that would lead to the committee, who cares about that Tiger brand, putting Clemson in right now.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all, though, if Notre Dame especially got a push ahead of Clemson.
What does Clemson football need to do?
The short answer is keep winning.
In the end, I think the Tigers could be anywhere from No. 3 in the nation to No. 6 just depending on who you ask if this poll was released today, but the good thing is the fact that it’s not released today.
Clemson still has a chance to prove to the nation that it is one of the elite teams and we all know that things will work themselves out, especially when we get to November. Many undefeated teams will go down and the path will become clearer as we get closer to the end of the season.
For now, though, just win.