College Football Playoff rankings: Ohio State moves to No. 1 over LSU after beating Penn State
Ohio State is back to being the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings.
Ohio State beat No. 10 Penn State 28-17 on Saturday and that was good enough to jump over LSU for the top spot in Tuesday’s rankings. The Tigers fell to No. 2 after blowing out hapless Arkansas. LSU had jumped over Ohio State after beating Alabama on Nov. 9. The Buckeyes were No. 1 in the initial set of 2019 playoff rankings.
Clemson remained at No. 3 while Georgia and Alabama remained at Nos. 4 and 5. Utah jumped to No. 6 after Oregon’s loss at Arizona State on Saturday. The Ducks dropped to No. 14.
Ohio State plays No. 13 Michigan on Saturday with the Big Ten East division already wrapped up. The Buckeyes will face the winner of No. 8 Minnesota and No. 12 Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship on Dec. 7.
No. 1 could be a huge advantage
If Ohio State beats Michigan and a top-10 Minnesota or Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game it’s hard to see the Buckeyes not being No. 1 in the final rankings on Dec. 8. That’s a big deal.
If LSU beats Texas A&M on Saturday and then No. 4 Georgia, it’ll need a really convincing win over the Bulldogs to move Ohio State. And Clemson looks set to go 13-0. But definitely won’t pass Ohio State. If all three of those teams end up undefeated, two of them will have to play each other in the No. 2 vs. No. 3 semifinal. And it sure looks like that will be a Tigers vs. Tigers game between LSU and Clemson.
Alabama hangs on to No. 5
Alabama has just one more game left on its schedule. Oklahoma has two. Utah, with a win on Saturday over Colorado, will also have two more games.
The Crimson Tide take on No. 15 Auburn on Saturday while Oklahoma plays No. 21 Oklahoma State and will play No. 9 Baylor in the Big 12 championship. Utah would play Oregon in the Pac-12 title game.
Would the wins over ranked opponents in the title games — and a win over a ranked opponent in the season finale for the Sooners — be enough to push either a 12-1 Big 12 champ in Oklahoma or Baylor or a 12-1 Pac-12 champ in Utah over an 11-1 Alabama team?
That’s an important question, because LSU faces Georgia in the SEC championship. If the Tigers win that game, Georgia is most certainly falling out of the top four and potentially behind any other one-loss teams in the rankings. Whoever the committee feels has the best case among Alabama and any potential one-loss conference champs would take that fourth spot.
Baylor makes a jump after beating ... Texas?
The CFP committee hasn’t been too impressed with Baylor in 2019. Until Tuesday night. The Bears dominated Texas on Saturday to drop the Longhorns to 6-5 on the season. And that was apparently impressive enough for the committee to move Baylor from No. 14 to No. 9.
“We do start with a clean sheet each week and in the last two weeks, Baylor had the dominant win this week following the close loss against a highly ranked Oklahoma team to add to their resume where they already had two wins against ranked opponents,” CFP committee chair and Oregon AD Rob Mullens said. “So the committee felt they deserved to be at No. 9.”
Full rankings
1. Ohio State
2. LSU
3. Clemson
4. Georgia
5. Alabama
6. Utah
7. Oklahoma
8. Minnesota
9. Baylor
10. Penn State
11. Florida
12. Wisconsin
13. Michigan
14. Oregon
15. Auburn
16. Notre Dame
17. Iowa
18. Memphis
19. Cincinnati
20. Boise State
21. Oklahoma State
22. USC
23. Iowa State
24. Virginia Tech
25. Appalachian State
– – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
More from Yahoo Sports:
