Where will Clemson football land when the CFB Playoff committee releases its updated rankings Tuesday evening? Here’s our projection.
The Clemson football team debuted in the initial CFB Playoff rankings at No. 5 in the nation, behind the likes of Ohio State, LSU, Alabama and Penn State.
After one week, two of the top-four teams according to the committee lost and it’s now the Tigers who are in position to move inside the top-four.
Here’s a look at our projected top-10 for the updated CFB Playoff rankings and the playoff picture as we head into week 12 of the season, as well as what it means for Clemson football moving forward.
CFB Playoff Rankings: Projected Top-10 for Week 12
- LSU
- Ohio State
- Clemson
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Oregon
- Minnesota
- Utah
- Oklahoma
- Baylor
Keep in mind, these are our projections and not what we think should happen. In my opinion, Georgia should be nowhere near No. 4. I would have Oregon and Minnesota ahead of both Alabama and Georgia if I were ranking teams. There would honestly even be a case for Utah and Oklahoma ahead of the Bulldogs.
The committee will put this ranking out, however, giving Alabama the hope that it can still get back into the playoff once Georgia gets beat by LSU in the SEC Championship game. It shouldn’t happen, but it will.
CFB Playoff Picture:
ACC: Clemson
Big Ten: Ohio State, Minnesota
Big 12: Baylor, Oklahoma
Pac-12: Oregon, Utah
SEC: LSU, Georgia, Alabama
The CFB Playoff picture should be fairly clear right now. If any of these teams lose down the stretch- other than probably LSU and Ohio State- they’ll be eliminated from playoff contention.
LSU, Ohio State and Clemson should be locks for the playoff assuming they win out. That will leave one spot for a one-loss Alabama, potentially one-loss Oklahoma (Big 12 champion) and one-loss Pac-12 champion (Oregon or Utah) to compete for, assuming these teams can win-out.
At that point, Oklahoma would have two wins over Baylor, Alabama would have a win over Auburn with no division championship and the Pac-12 champion would presumably have the best win- assuming both teams win-out.
The truth is that it’s too early to tell what will happen down the stretch, but it certainly seems that Alabama is still the front-runner for the final spot despite giving up 46 and losing at home. It will be interesting to see what the committee does outside of the top-three, which should be absolutely a given at this point.