Ohio State falls to No. 8 seed in CFP rankings

A glamorous first-round matchup between Alabama and Notre Dame shone off the prospective bracket Tuesday night in the penultimate revealing of the College Football Playoff rankings. By the parsing of the 13-member selection committee, Alabama at the moment would become the last team into the 12-team field.

With Oregon (12-0) still No. 1 as with each set of rankings this late fall, and with Texas (11-1) up to No. 2, Penn State (11-1) to No. 3 and Notre Dame (11-1) to No. 4, the bracket shook out as usual with the deference to conference championships when determining seedings. Going by the present status, the four first-round byes would go to Big Ten leader Oregon as the No. 1 seed, SEC leader Texas as No. 2, ACC leader SMU (11-1) as No. 3 (while its ranking inched up a notch to No. 8) and Mountain West leader Boise State (11-1) as No. 4.

That meant the fifth conference winner granted a place in the field, either Arizona State (10-2) or Iowa State (10-2) of the Big 12 and its championship game coming Saturday, would grab the No. 12 seeding as the lowest-ranked qualifier. Arizona State held down the No. 15 ranking Tuesday night, Iowa State No. 16. Arizona State would take a first-round trip clear to State College, Pennsylvania, to play Penn State, which would get a No. 5 seed.

Because Penn State stayed one notch ahead of Notre Dame, the prospect now has Notre Dame as a No. 6 seed, with Alabama at No. 11, meaning Alabama (9-3) would visit Notre Dame on the weekend of Dec. 20-21. The placement of Alabama at that No. 11 spot, and as the last at-large qualifier, figured to stoke the most conversation in the coming days, given that Miami (10-2) tumbled six places to No. 12 just behind Alabama in these latest rankings. Mississippi (9-3) and South Carolina (9-3), other teams seen as contenders for that last spot, came in just behind Miami at Nos. 13 and 14, respectively. The Hurricanes needed to win at Syracuse (9-3) on Saturday to remain aloft but lost, 42-38, to a team that just made its first entry of the season into the rankings, at No. 22.

The other two first-round games would have No. 9 seed Tennessee (10-2) visiting No. 8 seed Ohio State (10-2) and No. 10 seed Indiana (11-1) at No. 7 seed Georgia (10-2). Ohio State fell only from No. 2 to No. 6 after its shocking 13-10 home loss to Michigan on Saturday, while Georgia rode its eight-overtime win against Georgia Tech on a two-spot climb from No. 7 to No. 5, interesting given how Georgia Tech’s serial nearness to victory in its 44-42 loss might have signaled Georgia’s ouster from the playoff.

UNLV (10-2), which lost, 29-24, to Boise State in Las Vegas on Oct. 25, will play the Broncos again Friday night, in Boise, in the Mountain West championship game. If UNLV were to win that game, it would figure to grab a spot, but probably without that fourth bye, which would go instead to the Arizona State-Iowa State winner.

Another wrench could come from Clemson (9-3), which could bolt into the dozen if it can upend SMU in the ACC championship game Saturday night, even though it just lost at home to South Carolina and fell five rankings places. If the Tigers could manage that unexpected title, one of the leading questions for the final rankings coming Sunday would entail whether SMU would hang on to an at-large spot or fall completely out of the field.

Projected playoff field

First-round byes

No. 1 seed Oregon (Big Ten champion)

No. 2 seed Texas (SEC champion)

No. 3 seed SMU (ACC champion)

No. 4 seed Boise State (Mountain West champion)

First-round matchups

No. 12 seed Arizona State at No. 5 seed Penn State

No. 11 seed Alabama at No. 6 seed Notre Dame

No. 10 seed Indiana at No. 7 seed Georgia

No. 9 seed Tennessee at No. 8 seed Ohio State

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