College Football Playoff Rankings, Week 10: 5 biggest takeaways

4) The Big 12 is all but done

The Big 12’s playoff hopes were already slim prior to Week 9 action, and a pair of crucial losses plus the committee rankings basically eliminated the sliding conference.

West Virginia and Baylor entered the weekend as the only two undefeated teams in the conference with the hope of making the top four. The Mountaineers fell, 37-20, on the road to Oklahoma State, while Baylor suffered an even worse loss to a pretty bad Texas team.

A Big 12 team likely had to run the table to make it anyway, but there still might have been a flicker of hope had the committee put one of the teams somewhere in the 12-15 range. Instead, both teams were punished severely for the respective losses, as Baylor checked in at No. 17 with West Virginia at No. 20.

That’s just too far back for the Big 12 to make a serious run at the top four. West Virginia needed to be several spots higher, as it at least played some semblance of a decent non-conference schedule, at least compared to Baylor.

No. 14 Oklahoma is now the highest ranked Big 12 team and looks like the favorite to win the conference. As the Sooners have two losses from non-conference games, it would take complete chaos for them to return to the playoff.

Barring a miracle, the Big 12 will be left out of the playoff for the second time in its three-year existence. The Big 12 decided to add a championship game for next season which will help its overall standing, but it is still far behind the other Power Five conferences.