College Football Playoff Rankings: Biggest Takeaways from Week 8
Like most college football weeks that look boring on paper, Week 8 was anything but boring.
Sure, only one game featured two ranked teams, but when has that ever stopped us from having fun? Even with a somnolent noon slate, spoiler weekend became one for the books.
While some of what happened was just interesting—here's looking at you, Auburn vs. Arkansas—other results had an impact on the College Football Playoff. For the second straight week, a Top 15 team lost in epic, historic fashion on a special teams error as time expired.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Let's recap everything we learned.
Clemson Is the Sole ACC Favorite
Point taken, Clemson.
You're for real.
The Tigers rammed that message down our throats with a 58-0 win at Miami, beating the Canes by more points than any team ever. They rushed for 416 yards and made a team that nearly beat Florida State two weeks ago look lost, soft, slow and confused.
Speaking of Florida State, the former co-ACC favorite lost 22-16 in heartbreaking fashion at Georgia Tech, falling after a special teams gaffe that was part Alabama vs. Auburn, part Michigan vs. Michigan State:
The winner of the Clemson-Florida State game has won the past six ACC titles, and that could easily still become seven.
If the Noles beat Clemson two weeks from now, they will own the head-to-head advantage. What happened in Week 8 didn't change that; it just revealed a lot about both teams.
Clemson had already ranked No. 1 on Football Outsiders' S&P+ ratings, but it still had much to prove. The Tigers' only "quality" win came in a hurricane against Notre Dame's backup quarterback, and the Irish actually outgained them in that game. We thought but didn't know Clemson needs to be taken seriously.
Now we know it needs to be taken seriously.
Florida State? Maybe not so much.
The Pac-12 Needs Stanford or Utah to Win Out
USC's 42-24 "upset" of Utah—quotations since the Trojans closed as 6.5-point favorites, per Odds Shark—was great for the Trojans but bad for the Pac-12.
The Utes lost their first game of the season, joining Stanford as the conference's only one-loss teams through eight weeks.
Assuming no two-loss team makes the CFP, which for now feels like a safe assumption, that means 10 Pac-12 schools have been eliminated from contention. That was the case before Week 8, but now Utah has an even thinner margin for error.
The Pac-12 needs one of those teams to win out.
It's hard to say which one stands the better chance. Here are their remaining schedules (pre-Week 8 advanced stats per Football Study Hall):
| 10/31 | at Washington State | 61 | W | 72% | 10.2 |
| 11/7 | at Colorado | 99 | W | 88% | 20.4 |
| 11/14 | Oregon | 57 | W | 81% | 15.4 |
| 11/21 | California | 29 | W | 69% | 8.7 |
| 11/28 | Notre Dame | 12 | W | 56% | 2.8 |
| 10/31 | Oregon State | 104 | W | 96% | 29.9 |
| 11/7 | at Washington | 44 | W | 59% | 4.0 |
| 11/14 | at Arizona | 68 | W | 74% | 10.9 |
| 11/21 | UCLA | 25 | W | 66% | 7.3 |
| 11/28 | Colorado | 99 | W | 94% | 26.7 |
Those numbers will change after Week 8's results, but not for nothing they give Stanford a 20 percent chance and Utah a 26 percent chance of winning out. And that's before the Pac-12 title game.
This conference is in serious danger.
Baylor Better Hope Jarrett Stidham Is Ready
Week 8's most depressing on-field news came from Waco, Texas, where Baylor quarterback Seth Russell suffered a neck fracture.
"[He will] probably be out awhile," head coach Art Briles said Saturday, per Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com.
We'll know more when he sees a specialist Monday.
Regardless, the injury sounds serious. If it doesn't end Russell's season, it should at least keep him sidelined in the short term.
That puts the onus on true freshman Jarrett Stidham, the No. 38 overall recruit in the country, per 247Sports' composite ratings, to carry the load.
Stidham is a true dual-threat quarterback with unlimited upside, but the task before him seems grueling. For all his talent, he's still just a kid. It helps that he enrolled for (and impressed during) spring practice, but again: He's just a kid.
Ohio State won the national title last year after losing QB Braxton Miller, and Notre Dame is contending after losing Malik Zaire. J.T. Barrett, who replaced Miller, and DeShone Kizer, who replaced Zaire, both played well despite being freshmen.
Neither of those quarterbacks came to college with Stidham's pedigree, but both took redshirts before grabbing the reins. Stidham did not. Baylor gets a bye next week, but after that it's at Kansas State, home versus Oklahoma and then at Oklahoma State and TCU.
If Russell isn't back by then, can Baylor stay undefeated?
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
