College football rankings: Conference power rankings entering Week 10

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Head coach Mel Tucker of the Michigan State Spartans. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

The conferences are starting to shape up officially as the College Football Playoff rankings come out for the first time. Which college football conference is looking the best going into the 10th week of the season?

It was one heck of a weekend in college football. The top teams in the country took care of businesses, but there were still some major upsets. Three top-10 teams came out on the losing end on the road despite coming in as the favorite. The rankings are going to see major changes as nine ranked teams lost this week. Six of those teams lost to unranked teams. It was a great week for parity in college football, but it was a bad week for those looking for direction as the College Football Playoff Committee makes its first rankings public this week.

The conferences all took huge losses. The SEC and Big Ten both lost top ten teams, but the Big Ten has Michigan State moving up to fifth in the nation in the AP Top 25 poll, and they could very well be one of the top four when the committee talks about the teams in the Playoff. They beat a Michigan Wolverines team that is making it a habit to lose right when the fans are starting to feel the hype. It keeps Ann Arbor humble, so that’s okay.

College football conference rankings: Big Ten and SEC battle as College Football Playoff rankings approach

5. Pac-12

Both the Pac-12 and ACC conferences have one single team in the Top 25 rankings. That seems preposterous, but it’s true. Luckily for them, they are both in the top 10, but they are having a race to the bottom we’ve never seen from two conferences in the Power 5. The Pac 12 Conference falls in the rankings because every one of their middle-of-the-pack teams lost. Oregon is still king after beating Colorado pretty easily, but UCLA, Oregon State, and Washington State all lost. Oregon will likely face Utah in the Pac-12 Championship Game, which was not expected coming into this season.

4. ACC

Moving up on this list is not a moment of celebration for this conference. It is still terrible, but only by a slightly better margin than the Pac-12. Pitt lost to unranked Miami. Virginia allowed BYU to score 66 points against them in a game that would have led to their own rankings if they found a way to win. Clemson escaped a loss to Florida State thanks to one of the worst final plays we may ever see. Wake Forest is undefeated. For the first time in program history, they are ranked in the top ten. They were the only team in the Power Five to never have a week in the top ten rankings. How will they respond? Can they actually push for a spot in the CFP?

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