The Cincinnati Bearcats, in three short weeks, have gone from non-entity to major contender for the College Football Playoff. This week Penn State also made a big move while three more teams joined the rankings as long-shots.
Beatdown Weekend
For most of the top teams, it was Beatdown Weekend. #3 Iowa kicked things off with a 51-14 drubbing of previously undefeated Maryland on the road. #4 Georgia didn't even let Arkansas on the board, winning 37-0, part of a 99-0 advantage the Bulldogs have over their last two games. Top-ranked Alabama had a 42-7 lead in the 4th quarter over Mississippi. #2 Oklahoma was the only close call, holding on for a 37-31 win over Kansas State.
But former #5 Notre Dame was beaten at home by Cincinnati 24-13, knocking the Irish down among the projected 2-loss scrubs at #12 while Cincy flew up to #7 from #16. Moving up to fill the gap left by the Irish were BYU and Arizona State, who beat UCLA 42-23 in Los Angeles.
BYU vs. Cincinnati: What will the committee look at?
Everyone's talking about Cincinnati now, but BYU is another non-Power Five team that could end up undefeated. What will the committee think of each of these teams, and why do we have BYU the higher of the two?
First and foremost is schedule. BYU's is actually a lot tougher overall, featuring seven Power Five schools to Cincinnati's two. This is why we count BYU as (almost) a Power Five squad in projecting where a 12-0 season would take them. Cincinnati is technically a Group of Five team but we treat them as somewhere in-between a Group of Five and Power Five school. The Committee (yes, they have biases) will consider the Bearcats a "legit" team but not quite fully legit due to their schedule.
Second: Conference championship. Cincinnati will have one, BYU will not. But Cincinnati's American title doesn't carry the cachet of a Power Five conference championship. BYU is in much the same position as Notre Dame: Power Five schedule but not championship game. But while an undefeated Notre Dame is basically a lock for the Playoff, a 12-0 BYU will be treated much like a 1-loss Power Five team.
What it really comes down to for an undefeated non-Power Five team is: who is the best team you beat? BYU has a win over Arizona State, and that props them up in our projection currently. Cincinnati just beat Notre Dame but that knocked the Irish to a mid-level contender. If Notre Dame ends up 11-1 that will be Cincinnati's strongest argument, since at 11-1 the Irish ranked ahead of BYU and that would "push" Cincy above them, too.
SportsRatings Projected Final College Football Playoff standings: post-week 5 (games thru 10/02)
LW Rnk Team Rec %Odds %Chg Chg Results 1 1. Alabama 13-0 73.6 +0.7 --- W Ole Miss 42-21 2 2. Oklahoma 13-0 72.1 +0.7 --- W @Kansas St 37-31 3 3. Iowa 12-1 47.7 +1.6 --- W Maryland 51-14 4 4. Georgia 12-1 42.3 +1.6 --- W Arkansas 37-0 6 5. Brigham Young 12-0 34.8 +7.0 up 1 W @Utah St 34-20 7 6. Arizona St 12-1 29.3 +4.9 up 1 W @UCLA 42-23 16 7. Cincinnati 13-0 18.5 +14.2 up 9 W @Notre Dame 24-13 18 8. Penn State 10-2 9.7 +7.1 up 10 W Indiana 24-0 11 9. Mississippi 10-2 9.2 +1.0 up 2 L @Alabama 42-21 10 10. Clemson 11-2 8.8 +0.1 --- W Boston College 19-13 9 11. Ohio State 10-3 8.3 -0.8 dn 2 W @Rutgers 52-13 5 12. Notre Dame 10-2 7.8 -25.4 dn 7 L Cincinnati 24-13 12 13. UCLA 10-2 7.3 -0.4 dn 1 L Arizona St 42-23 13 14. Wake Forest 10-2 6.9 -0.5 dn 1 W Louisville 37-34 14 15. Boston College 10-2 6.4 -0.5 dn 1 L @Clemson 19-13 17 16. Coastal Carolina 13-0 4.1 +0.3 up 1 W ULM 59-6 -- 17. UTSA 13-0 3.7 +3.7 new W UNLV 24-17 -- 18. Texas 9-3 2.3 +2.3 new W @TCU 32-27 8 19. Indiana 9-3 1.8 -7.7 dn 11 L @Penn State 24-0 19 20. Wisconsin 9-3 1.4 -0.8 dn 1 L Michigan 38-17 21 21. Iowa St 9-4 0.9 -0.4 --- W Kansas 59-7 23 22. North Carolina 9-3 0.9 0.0 up 1 W Duke 38-7 22 23. Oklahoma St 9-3 0.9 0.0 dn 1 W Baylor 24-14 15 24. Oregon 9-4 0.9 -5.6 dn 9 L @Stanford 31-24OT -- 25. Nevada 12-1 0.4 +0.4 new W @Boise St 41-31 Dropped out: #20 Miami, #24 Texas A&M, #25 Florida
Penn State zooms to #8 after shutting out Indiana, and hints at another problem for Cincinnati and BYU: kill off one Big Ten team and another rises to take its place. It's almost certain a Big Ten team will make the playoff, and Alabama and Georgia are looking more and more certain as locks from the SEC. And the Big 12 is very likely to have a team, too, whether Oklahoma holds on to be undefeated or not.
Mississippi moves up 2 spots after the expected loss to Alabama, probably jumping #10 Clemson due to the ACC's overall weakness, and Ohio State who fell two spots after adding a projected loss to Iowa in the Big Ten title game. #13 UCLA and #15 Boston College both drop a spot after losing, but those losses were already expected; their drop is due to being passed by Cincy and Penn State. Likewise Wake Forest falls a spot despite winning (barely, over Louisville).
New blood from Texas
Coastal Carolina slides up to #16 and is joined by another Group of Five teams, Texas-San Antonio who jumps in at #17. The Roadrunners already won both games we expected them to lose, and now they appear to be headed for home field advantage in the C-USA title game so they project to 13-0. They'll have to play better than they did against UNLV, of course.
Also coming in at #18 is Texas. Most had written off the Longhorns after the Arkansas loss, but after beating TCU they're a game ahead of our 8-4 projection and have hopes of moving up. They haven't played Oklahoma, Iowa State, or Oklahoma State yet so 9-3 seems fair; the Big 12 is a minefield of parity.
Oregon was never very high on our list but the Ohio State upset gave them some life; now the Stanford loss drops them back to where they started the season, projected at 9-4 at #24. They fare better than #20 Miami, #24 Texas A&M, and #25 Florida, all of whom departed the rankings.
Joining at #25 is Nevada, who upset Boise State to move in. The Wolfpack are now projected to win the Mountain West title game and go 12-1 a feat which gives them exactly one chance in hell of making the Playoff. But they're on the list, that's good right? Not so fast. With Florida's demise that makes five out of five weeks that our #25 team has lost and been dropped from the ranks. Nevada plays 1-5 New Mexico State this coming weekend so they should break that streak. Although they still might get booted by being overtaken from behind; Auburn and Kentucky are among the teams that could join the list with a win next week.
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