College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon leads repeat top five as Georgia jumps back into 12-team field
The third edition of the College Football Playoff Rankings were released Tuesday night with undefeated Oregon holding at No. 1 in the initial year of the expanded 12-team field. Off to a dominant start this season with wins over Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois, and most recently, Wisconsin, the Ducks sit in the top spot seeking to make their second playoff appearance overall — first since the four-team field debuted after the 2014 season.
Seven of 10 teams ranked No. 1 in a season’s initial CFP Rankings ultimately reached the playoff in the four-team era with Mississippi State (2014), Tennessee (2022) and Ohio State (2023) being the exceptions. With eight more spots in the field this season, Oregon sits in a strong position at 11-0 as one of two remaining Power Four undefeated programs this season (Indiana).
Ohio State, Texas, Penn State and Indiana round out the rest of the top five — as they did last week. The most notable change came with Georgia reentering the projected 12-team playoff field coming off its dominant win over Tennessee last Saturday.
The top Group of Five program in Tuesday’s release is Boise State at No. 12. With the 12-team playoff model granting automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, the Broncos stand in pole position to earn that opportunity should they win their league. Other Group of Five teams in this week’s rankings are Army West Point (19), Tulane (20) and UNLV (24).
Let’s take a look at the entire CFP Rankings top 25 along with the projected bracket seedings for the first 12 teams. Check out analysis by bowls expert Jerry Palm below.
College Football Playoff Rankings, Nov. 19
- Oregon (11-0) | Projected No. 1 seed
- Ohio State (9-1) | Projected No. 5 seed
- Texas (9-1) | Projected No. 2 seed
- Penn State (9-1) | Projected No. 6 seed
- Indiana (10-0) | Projected No. 7 seed
- Notre Dame (9-1) | Projected No. 8 seed
- Alabama (8-2) | Projected No. 9 seed
- Miami (FL) (9-1) | Projected No. 3 seed
- Ole Miss (8-2) | Projected No. 10 seed
- Georgia (8-2) | Projected No. 11 seed
- Tennessee (8-2)
- Boise State (9-1) | Projected No. 4 seed
- SMU (9-1)
- BYU (9-1) | Projected No. 12 seed
- Texas A&M (8-2)
- Colorado (8-2)
- Clemson (8-2)
- South Carolina (7-3)
- Army West Point (9-0)
- Tulane (9-2)
- Arizona State (8-2)
- Iowa State (8-2)
- Missouri (7-3)
- UNLV (8-2)
- Illinois (7-3)
Analysis by bowl expert Jerry Palm
When breaking down the College Football Playoff bracket based on this week’s CFP Rankings, the folks in Boise, Idaho, are doing the most celebrating. The Broncos only moved up one spot in the rankings this week to No. 12, but what’s of more importance is that all of the Big 12 teams in the rankings are behind them. So if the playoff started today, Boise State would get a bye.
However, the Broncos’ seeding could be up for debate.
While Miami is ranked higher than SMU in the CFP Rankings, the Mustangs currently sit alone atop the ACC standings. Taking that into account and using SMU as the ACC champion at the present time means Boise State would get a bye as the projected 3-seed, not the 4-seed. Miami would still be in as an at-large team, but there would be no room at the inn for Georgia or Tennessee.
Here’s how the bracket would look when taking those changes into consideration:
- (9) Alabama at (8) Notre Dame — Winner plays (1) Oregon
- (12) BYU at (5) Ohio State — Winner plays (4) SMU
- (11) Ole Miss at (6) Penn State — Winners plays (3) Boise State
- (10) Miami at (7) Indiana — Winner plays (2) Texas
Boise State cannot get too comfortable, though. The Broncos have just as good of a chance of being jumped from behind as having teams drop below them. There are no games left on their schedule against ranked teams unless UNLV can wedge its way into the Mountain West Championship Game.
When it came to the ordering of the two-loss SEC teams, I surmised that the committee would go with strength of schedule, but they decided to still honor the one head-to-head result that has not been canceled out: Ole Miss’ victory over Georgia. The Bulldogs are still ahead of Tennessee as well. The Volunteers’ win over Alabama is the only one among that group of four teams that is not honored, but it was impossible to account for all of them.
Another head-to-head result that is no longer carrying the day is BYU’s win at SMU. The Cougars fell eight spots to No. 14, which is the largest drop of the week for a team that is still in the rankings and one spot below the Mustangs.
One oddity this week in the top 10 is that Alabama, coming off that big, resume-building win over Mercer, jumped Miami, which must have looked sloppy in practice on their bye week. Another one further down saw No. 23 Missouri hold its position from last week despite losing at South Carolina.
The top seven spots are unchanged, but that will not be the case next week after Indiana visits Ohio State.
New to the rankings this week are Arizona State, Iowa State, UNLV and Illinois. We say goodbye, for now, to Kansas State, Louisville, LSU and Washington State.
Of course, there are still a few weeks left in the season, and there will surely be more changes as we get additional games between some of these teams fighting for College Football Playoff contention.
