The College Football Playoff picture was turned upside down on Saturday as three of the top four teams in the rankings suffered losses. First, the No. 2 Clemson Tigers lost 43-42 to the Pittsburgh Panthers in South Carolina. Then in Seattle, the No. 4 Washington Huskies fell to the 20th-ranked USC Trojans 24-13. Finally, the Iowa Hawkeyes upset the No. 3 Michigan Wolverines 14-13 in Iowa City on a last-second field goal. It was the first time in 31 years that Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in college football lost on the same day. The same thing happened on Oct. 19, 1985, when No. 2 Michigan lost to No. 1 Iowa, No. 3 Oklahoma lost to Miami and No. 4 Arkansas lost to Texas. So who's now poised to move up into the top four of the playoff rankings? Lurking just behind the top four last week were No. 5 Ohio State, No. 6 Louisville and No. 7 Wisconsin.
This past Saturday sent waves across the college football world as everyone struggled to piece together how the committee is going to evaluate these loses. How far will those teams move down and who moves up. One clear beneficiary from this is Louisville who now have a stronger case for the playoff top 4 spot. Surprisingly Penn State and Wisconsin both find themselves in the hunt for the Big Ten championship while Michigan still controls their own destiny. However it doesn't look so well for Ohio State since Michigan fell to Iowa we need Penn State to lose but with the soft schedule remaining for them its not looking too good. We all know how the committee overvalues conference champions and without the chance to play for it we might end up with a repeat of last year when teams that were not the top 4 in the country got embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs because they lucked up and won the conference. Time will tell just how everything will play out and this definitely adds more excitement and hope for all.
References
Odom, J. (2016). Upsets galore: College Football
Playoff picture disrupted after Clemson, Michigan, Washington all lose. The
Oregonian, 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment