College Football Playoff bracket: 12-team field after latest CFP Rankings reveal
The last College Football Playoff Rankings saw a lot of change among the spots in general after a chaotic Week 11 slate. Three teams featured in the previous bracket were knocked out of the field during Tuesday’s rankings reveal after scrambling to bring in a whole new set of competitors.
BYU was the most notable casualty, as the Cougars lost their spot after a 29-7 road loss to Texas Tech. BYU was still among the first teams eliminated, so there is a path back to the playoffs if the Cougars finish the year on a high note.
The same can’t be said for Virginia, which fell from projected ACC champion status to completely out of the race after suffering a home loss to unranked Wake Forest. Memphis was also supplanted by fellow Conference USA South Florida as the Group of Six representative.
Although the lower levels of the bracket have undergone some changes, the exemptions provided for in the first round have remained completely unscathed. Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M and Alabama still held the top four seeds.
This bracket is a projection heading into Week 12. Here’s a look at how the College Football Playoff bracket will look after the second release of the CFP rankings.
CBS Sports Design
The ACC still looking for several offers
The selection committee’s choice to rank Miami as the No. 1 team in the ACC and subsequently project the Hurricanes as conference champions is an odd choice. The chances of Miami actually making the ACC championship game are close to zero.
The Hurricanes already have two conference losses, putting them behind the five ACC teams one loss atop the league standings. In the event that chaos reigns, Miami would still lose tiebreakers to Louisville and SMU.
That means the ACC’s hopes for multiple offers are still alive. It’s clear that, regardless of its status as ACC champions, the committee thinks highly of Miami. The Hurricanes also have a head-to-head advantage against another potential bubble team in Notre Dame, who remained in 9th place on Tuesday.
There is a world in which the ACC champion — whether it’s Georgia Tech, Virginia, Louisville or an unranked team — and Miami both manage to advance in December.
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Texas Tech asks for a bye
Texas Tech moved up one spot to No. 6 after its monumental rout of BYU. While a tiny move might not seem significant in a vacuum, the Red Raiders jumped on Ole Miss and moved closer to a first-round bye.
If Texas Tech can finish the regular season undefeated and cap it all off with a Big 12 championship, it will at least have good reason to secure a top-three spot. The current top four consists of two SEC teams and two Big Ten teams.
Only half of this field can actually win a championship. A 12-1 Texas Tech with a Big 12 title would be a stronger candidate for a top-four finish than an SEC or Big Ten school that lost in its championship game.
Vanderbilt had a rough November. The Commodores suffered a major setback on Nov. 1 when they lost to Texas, then were put on the brink in a Week 11 showdown against an Auburn team that is 1-6 in conference play.
Despite the latest round of less-than-desirable results, Vanderbilt actually moved up two spots to 14th in the latest poll. Given that the Commodores rank ahead of a few projected conference champions, they’re still a little outside of “first team” reach, but they’re well within shouting distance of an at-large berth.
If they can take care of business against Kentucky and No. 23 Tennessee to finish with a 10-2 record, that would likely be enough to qualify in an expanded field.
