College Football Playoff Rankings: Projected top four after Week 14

Only a handful of teams can make the College Football Playoff through the Week 14 slate.

For the last few weeks, the College Football Playoff picture has largely held steady.

Either you are a team who has a decent shot of getting in or you are not. While the Notre Dame Fighting Irish became the first team to unofficially clinch a spot into the four-team field, the Alabama Crimson Tide are one win away from doing the same next week. They just need to beat the Arkansas Razorbacks to ensure they are getting in no matter what this season.

College Football Playoff teams after Week 14

After losing to the LSU Tigers at home a season ago, the Crimson Tide were having none of that whatsoever. Mac Jones and the Crimson Tide offense went to work through the air to embarrass the Bayou Bengals in Death Valley. With Alabama getting to 9-0 on the year, the Crimson Tide only need a victory over the Hogs next week to guarantee themselves a spot in the four-team field.

As long as the Crimson Tide get to Atlanta unscathed at 10-0, it will not matter what happens when they take on the SEC East champion Florida Gators. A win of Dan Mullen’s team will ensure Nick Saban’s bunch they will be the No. 1 seed. Should they fall, Alabama will be no worse than the No. 4 team in the land, possibly as high as No. 3, depending on what happens in Charlotte.

It will not be official until Selection Sunday, but everybody and their brother knows the Golden Domers have clinched a spot in the College Football Playoff. This is the second time in three seasons Brian Kelly’s team will have gotten in. This time, it will either be as an undefeated ACC Champion or as a one-loss, non-champion, at-large team. Either way, they are getting in.

By having their last ACC game of the season pulled from the schedule, the Irish are playing for playoff seeding when they face the Clemson Tigers in Charlotte. If Notre Dame beats Clemson twice this year, Notre Dame may be able to take the top spot away from Alabama. Should Notre Dame fall to Clemson in a few weeks, they will be no worse than the No. 4 seed in the field.

It was not looking great in the first half, but Clemson responded by beating the brakes off the Virginia Tech Hokies to keep their College Football Playoff dreams alive. As with Notre Dame, the Tigers had their final regular-season game taken off the schedule so that they can prepare for about as high stakes of an ACC title bout you could ever ask for. If Clemson wins, they are in.

As with Florida in the SEC side of things, the only way Clemson makes the playoff this year will be as a one-loss, Power 5 champion. If Clemson loses twice to Notre Dame, not only will the Tigers not make the playoff, but they might potentially be on the outside looking in at a New Year’s Six bowl, as a team they beat in the Miami Hurricanes will only have one loss on the season.

Saturday was a huge day for the Ohio State Buckeyes for a few reasons. Despite having to take a depleted roster to East Lansing to face the Michigan State Spartans, the Buckeyes blew out the opposition en route to 5-0 on the year. It was a dominating performance that shows the Buckeyes belong in the playoff, regardless of if they even qualify to play in the Big Ten Championship game.

But let’s be real for one second. The Big Ten is going to make sure Ohio State represents the Big Ten East in the conference championship no matter what. They hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the second best team in the division in the Indiana Hoosiers. If Ohio State beats the Michigan Wolverines next week and presumably the Northwestern Wildcats in Indianapolis, they will get in.

First two teams out

It was not easy, but the Texas A&M Aggies got another win over an SEC West rival on Saturday. The Aggies went down to The Plains to hand the Auburn Tigers their fourth loss of the season. This was Texas A&M’s sixth win in a row, the first time the Aggies had done that since 2016. As long as the Aggies play and win their next two games, they still have a shot of making the playoff.

For Texas A&M to sneak its way in, the Aggies need Alabama to beat Florida in Atlanta and Notre Dame to beat Clemson. They will not need wonkiness in the Big Ten, but that could help their cause as well. Basically, Texas A&M could get in as a one-loss, at-large as the No. 4 seed behind undefeated Power 5 champions in Alabama, Notre Dame and Ohio State in some order.

Overall, Florida is one of five or so teams that control their own playoff destiny, depending on how you view the Pac-12 teams. If Florida beats LSU next week and then upsets Alabama in the SEC Championship in two weeks, the Gators will get in as a one-loss Power 5 champion, possibly as high as the No. 2 seed. This is the only way the Gators get in this year. They have to win out.

Though LSU is a rivalry game, Florida should have no problem putting away the Bayou Bengals in a lost season for Ed Orgeron’s team. As for the title bout date vs. Alabama, Florida has more than a puncher’s chance, but is still the sizable underdog in this neutral-site affair in Atlanta. While Florida feels like a lock to make a New Year’s Six bowl again, it is all about making the playoff now.

While the playoff picture did not change from a week ago, it is abundantly clear there are six teams who have a realistic to a semi-realistic shot of getting in. Though Notre Dame is essentially a guarantee at this point, perhaps some unexpected chaos in the ACC, SEC or Big Ten Championship games could open a spot for someone we initially were not planning on getting in.

What will the Selection Committee decide heading into their third official rankings this week?

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