There was only one change within the top 11 of the College Football Rankings, after the latest update was unveiled Tuesday night.
Oregon (10-1) and Ole Miss (10-1) flipped spots at Nos. 6-7 coming off the Ducks’ 42-27 win over then-No. 15 USC on Saturday while the Rebels were on a bye.
The move mirrors the same change in the AP top 25 poll this week.
It’s ultimately moot as both teams should be locks for CFP at-large berths with wins this week, as Oregon closes the regular season on the road at Washington and Ole Miss closes out the schedule against rival Mississippi State, with neither team in position to reach their respective conference championship game.
But it’s an interesting perspective nonetheless.
Beating USC is now Oregon’s only win over a currently-ranked opponent (as Penn State and Iowa are no longer in the rankings but were at the time the Ducks beat them). The Ducks’ loss came by 10 points at home to No. 2 Indiana.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss won by 8 points on the road at Oklahoma (No. 8 in the current CFP rankings), beat now-No. 24 Tulane, 45-10, in September and took its lone loss on the road at now-No. 4 Georgia.
It’s hard to see how Oregon’s resume is better than Ole Miss’, unless the specter of coach Lane Kiffin leaving the program before the playoffs for the LSU job is factoring into the discussion behind the scenes.
CFP chair Hunter Yurachek said that isn’t the case.
“We didn’t have any discussion about Ole Miss and their coach. That was all about Oregon and their performance against USC,” Yurachek said during his appearance on ESPN. “Their strength of schedule continues to climb, they’ve been dominant on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, really good in special teams, and the committee had been waiting for them to have a signature win to really put them where we thought they deserved to be.”
Asked if it would become a factor if Kiffin does leave Ole Miss early, Yurachek said, “It is in the protocol, but I’m not sure we will have a data point to use that as part of the protocol,” clarifying the committee will not have seen the Rebels play a game without Kiffin in that hypothetical.
As for other rankings matters.
The furor some hold that No. 9 Notre Dame (9-2) remains ranked ahead of No. 12 Miami (9-2) despite the Hurricanes beating the Fighting Irish, 27-24, way back in Week 1, will only intensify now that the Hurricanes moved one spot higher — and closer to the Irish — this week.
The feedback from Yurachek last week was that the head-to-head result hadn’t been a determining factor as Notre Dame and Miami weren’t in the same tier of teams being evaluated. Now, he seemed to say they are but that the head-to-head still isn’t enough to outweigh the other factors separating the teams.
“They were compared this week, but they’re compared in the same pod with Alabama and a one-loss BYU, and the committee still feels that Notre Dame is a complete team, has been consistent throughout the season and deserves to be ranked where they are at No. 9 ahead of Alabama, a really good two-loss team with some great wins, and then a one-loss BYU team and then Miami falls in accordingly,” Yurachek said.
“The committee has seen some really good consistent play from Miami over the last three weeks. You talk about Carson Beck over the last three games has completed over 80 percent of his passes, 800 yards of total passing, 8 touchdowns, no interceptions. He looks like the Carson Beck in that five-game winning streak they had to start the season. They lost two out of three, but it now appears they’re back on track. They started in this poll 18 and now they’re 12 — they’re the biggest movers so far in the past four weeks.”
As it looks, Notre Dame — which has won nine straight games by double-figures (most by several touchdowns) with notable wins over ranked USC and Pittsburgh teams — would make it into the CFP as an at-large team while Miami would be on the outside looking in. The Hurricanes, who lost to now-unranked Louisville and an SMU team that jumped into the CFP rankings at No. 21 this week, have no real path to reaching the ACC championship game but do play No. 22 Pittsburgh this week with one last shot to impress the selection committee.
The other notable rankings are …
– Vanderbilt (9-2) staying at No. 14 after a dominant 45-17 win over Kentucky, meaning the Commodores — one of the best stories in college football — will need total chaos ahead of them in the rankings to have any shot at an at-large berth.
– Michigan (9-2) moving up three spots to No. 15 thanks to losses by USC and Georgia Tech and leapfrogging Texas (8-3). The Wolverines host No. 1 Ohio State this week with an opportunity to potentially vault themselves into an at-large berth, or maybe even into the Big Ten championship game if either Indiana or Oregon also lose.
– Texas and QB Arch Manning looked great in a 52-37 win over Arkansas and get a chance to boost their stock more this week closing against No. 3 Texas A&M. If the Longhorns upset the unbeaten Aggies, things could get interesting, but it’s important to remember no three-loss team earned an at-large berth last season and it would take a lot of disruption in the top 15 to get Texas anywhere close to the cut line.