College Football Playoff Rankings 2021: Official Committee's List Ahead of Week 11

Another week, another set of clues about who might ultimately make this year's College Football Playoff.

One pretty major upset shook up the rankings, while the top four shouldn't come as a major surprise, with Georgia continuing to lead the way. Below, we'll break down the rankings and analyze the committee's selections.

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Week 11 Rankings

1. Georgia

2. Alabama

3. Oregon

4. Ohio State

5. Cincinnati

6. Michigan

7. Michigan State

8. Oklahoma

9. Notre Dame

10. Oklahoma State

11. Texas A&M

12. Wake Forest

13. Baylor

14. BYU

15. Ole Miss

16. NC State

17. Auburn

18. Wisconsin

19. Purdue

20. Iowa

21. Pittsburgh

22. San Diego State

23. UTSA

24. Utah

25. Arkansas

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Analysis

There weren't a ton of shockers in the College Football Playoff Committee's second iteration of the rankings.

Georgia, as expected, remained at No. 1 following a 43-6 drubbing of Missouri. It's hard to see the Bulldogs losing between now and the SEC Championship Game, with matchups against Tennessee (5-4), Charleston Southern (3-5) and Georgia Tech (3-6) remaining.

Anything can happen in college football, of course, but things appear to be headed toward a clash between No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. The Crimson Tide have a gimme against New Mexico State (1-8) before tougher matchups with No. 25 Arkansas (6-3) and the Iron Bowl versus No. 17 Auburn (6-3).

Granted, Alabama wasn't exactly impressive in a 20-14 win over struggling LSU (4-5) on Saturday.

"I think there are a lot of things in the game that we probably didn't do well," head coach Nick Saban told reporters after the game. "We didn't block them up front really well. We didn't run the ball very well on offense. We couldn't run it at the end of the game when we needed to. We weren't as effective on third down. We had some protection issues. A lot of things that we can fix, and I think we need to fix them so we can be a little more consistent."

For now, it would appear Saban is more concerned with those deficiencies than the CFP Committee.

With Michigan State losing to Purdue on Saturday, dropping the Spartans out of the top four, the question became which team would move up the rankings. While neither Oregon nor Ohio State was particularly impressive last week, they were the logical choices to move up a spot.

So much of how the CFP rankings will ultimately shake out is tied up in what is becoming a very intriguing three-team race in the Big Ten East, where Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan are each 8-1.

Ohio State still has to play both teams in the final two weeks of the regular season, meaning that whichever team—if any—survives the gauntlet will have a very good shot of also making the College Football Playoff, assuming the team also wins the Big Ten title.

Cincinnati was a major topic of conversation following its No. 6 ranking last week, with many people feeling the undefeated Bearcats should be higher. But a 28-20 victory over 3-6 Tulsa likely didn't help their cause much.

Perhaps a more convincing win would have bumped them up the standings. But Cincy's ho-hum performances of late have only added to its uphill climb to make the playoff.