College Football Playoff rankings 2022: Projected Week 12 Top 25 after Washington upsets Oregon, Alabama survives Ole Miss, UCLA falls
The College Football Playoff rankings shouldn’t be shaken up in the Top 4 but the rest of the CFP rankings could see chaos after a wild Week 11.
Nothing could’ve matched the chaos that was last week with Alabama and Tennessee both going down to shake up the College Football Playoff rankings. But Week 11 tried its best with some terrific games that went down to the wire along with some key upsets.
The biggest upset, particularly for the CFP rankings, was Oregon losing at home to Washington in the evening slate of games. But then UCLA put the Pac-12 into further chaos with a loss to Arizona at home late on Saturday night. And let’s not forget Alabama narrowly skating by Ole Miss in Oxford, and LSU avoiding a letdown upset to Arkansas.
Oh, and for good measure, Vanderbilt broke its 26-game SEC losing streak to beat No. 24-ranked Kentucky. What a day.
All told, eight ranked teams lost again this week, as did several teams knocking on the door of the Top 25. So that leaves us a lot of work to do with our projections for the next College Football Playoff rankings.
Projected College Football Playoff rankings after Week 11: No. 25-21
25. Oregon State Beavers
Oregon State dropped outside of the Top 25 after losing to Washington last week but, after the Beavers throttled Cal on Saturday and with what the Huskies did, it’s hard to think that the Corvallis faithful shouldn’t expect their team to crack the rankings once again. This is a good team without a bad loss among their three defeats having gone down to USC, Utah and Washington, all Top 20 teams in the country.
24. Troy Trojans
It might not have been an impressive win over Army on Saturday, but it was a victory for a Troy team sneakily boasting one of the best defenses in the country. With the win, the Trojans quietly move to 8-2 on the season with one of those losses coming to an Ole Miss team that gave Alabama all they could handle. This team has gotten the wins to secure the respect of the committee.
23. Cincinnati Bearcats
Was it a sweaty win for Cincinnati this week as they welcomed a feisty East Carolina team to their house? Absolutely. ECU took a third-quarter lead before the Bearcats were able to kick the field goal late on Friday night and secure the victory after a defensive stop. As I’ve said before, this isn’t the same team we saw from Luke Fickell last season, but they’re probably still one of the 25 best given the logjam around this spot.
22. UTSA Roadrunners
Because Sincere McCormick is gone and the Meep Meep train isn’t undefeated, it seems like people are quick to overlook UTSA this season. On Saturday, though, the Roadrunners ran through Louisiana Tech in a 51-7 rout, moving them to 8-2 on the year. The strength of schedule might not be the most impressive, but the wins are more than a lot of teams with better schedules can show for themselves.
21. Tulane Green Wave
What looked like a blowout late in the first half ended up showing what Tulane is truly made of. The Green Wave fell behind 24-7 in the second quarter at home to UCF but then fought back to make it 38-31 on a 24-14 run from there on. They fell short of completing the comeback and will now lose the distinction as the top-ranked Group of 5 team. But Tulane undoubtedly showed they are not a flash in the pan.