College football fans everywhere knew last Saturday’s games would scramble the college football playoff rankings picture. The most notable game, No. 1 Mississippi State Bulldogs against No. 5 Alabama Crimson Tide, was the biggest of the bunch, and the outcome certainly scrambled as promised. If you’re not near the TV or ESPN2, you can watch College Football Playoff Committee Rankings live online Week 4 to see how the latest playoff rankings shake out.
[UPDATE: The new rankings are in, and Alabama is No. 1. You can read the full story here.)
Last week Alabama fell into the No. 5 spot for the second straight week, putting the Crimson Tide into an awkward but potentially lucrative spot. The Mississippi State Bulldogs, Oregon Ducks, Florida State Seminoles and TCU Horned Frogs held the top four spots in the college football playoff picture, with the latter being a particular surprise.
That added a little extra sale for Alabama going into last Saturday’s showdown, which the Tide won (albeit not comfortably). The college football AP poll rewarded Florida State on Sunday by moving them back up to No. 1, while Alabama jumped from No. 5 to No. 2. With FSU and Alabama taking the top two spots, the remaining AP college football top 5 were (in order) the University of Oregon Ducks, Mississippi State Bulldogs and TCU Horned Frogs.
Presumably the College Football Playoff Committee will echo the Associated Press’ decision and give a big boost to the Crimson Tide. The No. 5 team bumping off the No. 1 team would seem to justify a move up of at least a few spots, if not giving Alabama the top spot overall.
However, Florida State is still sitting on a 10-0 record, while Alabama, Oregon and Mississippi State all have 9-1. It could be hard for the CFB Playoff Committee ranking team to overlook FSU’s undefeated record. Will Alabama thus supplant Oregon as the No. 2 seed this week? Oregon had a bye and didn’t win or lose, so a little movement for the Ducks could be justified.
Or will everyone just move up a spot, while Mississippi State moving down to No. 5, where Alabama found itself for the past two weeks?
The most likely scenario as we watch the College Football Playoff Committee Rankings live tonight is for FSU to move to No. 1, Alabama to roll on to No. 2, the Oregon Ducks to move down a spot to No. 3 and the Mississippi State Bulldogs to hold tight at the No. 4 spot in the playoff bracket.
TCU won this past weekend, but just barely, and Mississippi State’s loss to Alabama (also just barely) was against a much stronger team. If Alabama does end up in the No. 2 spot in the Week 4 playoff rankings, they’d be well positioned to move up to No. 1 after next weekend’s game.
We won’t know for sure until the playoff committee makes their selections this evening at 7:00 EST / 4:00 PST. The rankings are televised live on ESPN2, or you can watch College Football Playoff Committee rankings live online week 4 on the WatchESPN website if your cable provider supports the Watch ESPN app.
