Boise State moved ahead of BYU in the third installment of rankings released by the College Football Playoff selection committee Tuesday night, putting the Broncos in position to receive a first-round bye ahead of the Big 12 champion.
The top five remain unchanged, with No. 1 Oregon leading the way, followed by No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Indiana. But the biggest storyline is the way the committee dropped BYU after a 17-13 loss to Kansas put an end to its unbeaten season.
BYU (9-1) moved down eight spots from No. 6 to No. 14, falling behind No. 12 Boise State (9-1).
Using the current rankings, Oregon (Big Ten), Texas (SEC), Miami (ACC) and Boise State (Mountain West) would be the four highest-rated conference champions and would receive first-round byes in the 12-team playoff. BYU (Big 12) would be included in the playoff as the fifth-highest rated conference champion but would be the No. 12 seed and have to play in the first round.
Based on résumés, Boise State has a better loss than BYU — on the road against No. 1 Oregon, after the Ducks kicked a winning field goal as time expired. BYU lost at home to a Kansas team that is 4-6. The week before, BYU needed a late comeback to beat Utah. The Cougars have not yet played any of the Big 12 teams ranked in the current top 25, though they play at No. 21 Arizona State on Saturday.
“We certainly consider strength [of schedule] in all of the conversations that we have,” Warde Manuel, chair of the CFP committee, said on ESPN’s rankings release show Tuesday night. “We also look at how the teams are playing, and what it is the success on the field.”
BYU’s best win is over SMU, and though the teams are both 9-1 and BYU has the head-to-head win, the Mustangs are ranked one spot ahead at No. 13.
That would still leave them on the outside looking in.
“We watch the games and we see how teams are playing each week,” Manuel said. “So we assess their body of work. We’re going to evaluate it each week, from how the team plays that week, but also the body of work.”
Notre Dame (No. 6), Alabama (No. 7), Miami (No. 8), Ole Miss (No. 9) and Georgia (No. 10) round out the top 10.
“I don’t think they value the Big Ten over the SEC, I think they value wins and losses,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said Tuesday, when asked if he thought the CFP committee treasures the Big Ten over the SEC. “So, they place people based on a column, a column of wins and a column of losses, not on the eye test of going to watch them play and see who they play. I think they base it on wins and losses. I don’t think they say, ‘well, this is better than that.’ They just say ‘this record’s better than that.’ That’s the most simple way to do it. It’s not necessarily the 12 best, so we’ll see what happens. I’m not worried about it much. I got to worry about our team and what we got going on.”
The first-round matchups would look like this: No. 12 BYU at No. 5 Ohio State; No. 11 Georgia at No. 6 Penn State; No. 10 Ole Miss at No. 7 Indiana; No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Notre Dame.
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“We look at the data, we look at the stats, but we also have to watch the games and see how the teams are performing,” Manuel said. “And it’s a lot of debate. But that’s the value of having 13 people in this committee, with the conversations that are going on.”
Tennessee dropped four spots to No. 11 after its 31-17 loss to Georgia but would be the first team out of the 12-team playoff. Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee are all 8-2 and have different head-to-head wins over one another. Alabama, which jumped Miami to No. 7 after beating Mercer, beat Georgia but lost to Tennessee; Ole Miss beat Georgia and will not play Alabama or Tennessee.
With so much left to be determined in the SEC race, there is a fear that the loser of the SEC championship game could get left out of the playoff as a three-loss team.
“I’ve talked to other coaches, so I’ll just kind of give you the feeling from some other coaches that, they don’t want to be in it,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said during his news conference Monday. “The reward to get a bye versus the risk to get knocked out completely. I mean … that’s a really big risk.”
Texas A&M is also 8-2 but ranked No. 15. Still, the Aggies and Texas are the only two teams with one loss in SEC play. If both teams win this weekend (Texas A&M is at Auburn and Texas hosts Kentucky), their regular-season finale would be for a guaranteed spot in the SEC championship game. So the Aggies are not out of the race yet, either.
Colorado follows Texas A&M at No. 16, then it’s Clemson, South Carolina, Army and Tulane. Four of the last five teams are new to the rankings this week — Arizona State at No. 21, Iowa State at No. 22, UNLV at No. 24 and Illinois at No. 25. Missouri remained at No. 23.
Kansas State, Louisville, Washington State and LSU all dropped out after losses last weekend.
With conference title games approaching, eight SEC teams are ranked in the top 25 this week, along with five Big Ten teams, four Big 12 teams, three ACC teams and two each from the American Athletic Conference and Mountain West.
“We have a lot of value with the teams that make a conference championship game. Making that game is a valuable data point,” Manuel said. “We are ranking the teams through the championship games. But teams that make those championship games, the committee looks at them and puts them in high esteem.”
The four first-round games will be played at the home campus of the higher-seeded teams on Dec. 20 and 21. The four quarterfinal games will be staged at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
The two semifinal games will take place at the Capital One Orange Bowl and Goodyear Cotton Bowl on Jan. 9 and 10.
The CFP National Championship presented by AT&T is scheduled for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Additional reporting from ESPN Senior Writer Mark Schlabach.
