College Football Playoff rankings 2022: Projected Week 14 Top 25 after Michigan dominates Ohio State, LSU and Clemson lay eggs

Projected College Football Playoff rankings after Week 13: No. 6-5

6. Alabama Crimson Tide

The chances of the Alabama Crimson Tide making the College Football Playoff coming into Rivalry week were between slim and none with a strong lean toward the latter. They needed an inordinate amount of chaos to even have a case to make as to why they should be considered one of the Top 4 teams in the country after this season in which they lost to both Tennessee and LSU, the two best teams on their schedule while also being dominant in the Iron Bowl.

In the case of handling Auburn, the Tide made sure that was the easy part of the task at hand. The final score was 49-27 but the game often didn’t even feel that close. Alabama’s defense made it hard for the Tigers to do anything outside of broken plays and Bryce Young consistently cooked the opposing defense as well. But even better for Alabama, Ohio State getting blown out along with LSU and Clemson losing now opens the door ever so slightly for a chance to sneak in if things go haywire on conference championship weekend.

5. Ohio State Buckeyes

For basically the entire season, it feels like we’ve been beaten over the head with all of the talent on the Ohio State roster. And just look at the final scores and how the Buckeyes have blown so many teams out. However, I’ve remained steadfast that many of those results were misleading and many of the stats were empty calories. On Saturday against Michigan, that proved to be the case.

There’s no denying the talent of C.J. Stroud, Marvin Harrison Jr. and many, many others on the OSU roster. The fact of the matter, however, is that the Buckeyes had not proven they could get off the mat if they kept getting punched hard in the mouth. That’s exactly what Michigan did for four quarters and Ohio State eventually couldn’t recover. This team just doesn’t have the necessary grit to compete in that type of game and it might cost them a Playoff spot yet again as a result.