College Football Rankings 2015: Latest Polls, Predictions for Week 13 Standings
With three weeks left until the end of college football's regular season, you can count on one or two more surprises that will shake up the College Football Playoff standings.
The biggest shock of the past weekend was Michigan State's 17-14 win over Ohio State. The Buckeyes are now almost assuredly out of the College Football Playoff hunt since they'd need approximately five teams ahead of them to lose in order to crack the top four.
Looking ahead a week, the three developments below could be among the more surprising to come out of Week 13's games.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Week 13 Predictions
Notre Dame Will Fall out of Top Four in Post-Week 13 Playoff Rankings
A section of Notre Dame fans might have looked at Michigan State's upset of Ohio State as good news for the Fighting Irish's playoff hopes.
On the contrary, the Spartans essentially supplanted the Buckeyes as the Big Ten's likeliest playoff representative, per Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel:
In addition, Iowa is a lock for the playoff if the Hawkeyes go undefeated and win the Big Ten Championship Game.
The last playoff spot could come down to Oklahoma and Notre Dame, and should that be the case, the Sooners will have the stronger resume.
If Oklahoma finishes with one loss, then it will have beaten Baylor, TCU and Oklahoma State in succession. The Sooners also came back to beat Tennessee on the road in September, which is a notable win after the Volunteers righted the ship in the season's second half.
The problem for Notre Dame is that many of the Fighting Irish's signature victories are looking less impressive the longer the season goes.
Georgia Tech was ranked 16th when it met Notre Dame on Sept. 19. The Yellow Jackets have since gone 1-7 following their defeat to the Irish. Similarly, Temple, USC and Pittsburgh have done Notre Dame few favors.
According to Jeff Sagarin, Notre Dame has a slightly higher strength of schedule than Oklahoma, but that could change should the Sooners beat Oklahoma State. Houston beating Navy would also knock the Midshipmen down in the rankings, and potentially out of the Top 25 altogether, thus denting the Fighting Irish's SOS a bit more.
You can make strong arguments for any two of Michigan State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame to be in the playoff, but the Spartans and Sooners are the most deserving of that group.
Michigan Will Upset Ohio State, Strengthen Case for New Year's Six Bowl
Running back Ezekiel Elliott's comments after Ohio State's loss to Michigan State overshadowed the actual game. While having a star player publicly question his coaching staff is never a good look, far more concerning for the Buckeyes was their anemic offensive performance.
The conditions may not have been ideal, but the reigning national champions gained a paltry 132 yards as a team, and quarterback J.T. Barrett went 9-of-16 for 46 yards. Somewhere in Dublin, Ohio, OSU head coach Urban Meyer was quietly signing Robin Thicke's "Lost Without You" and thinking about Houston coach Tom Herman.
Fans kept waiting for the "real" Ohio State to show up sooner or later, but the "real" Ohio State was right there in front of them all along.
Aside from their season-opening win against Virginia Tech, the Buckeyes never had that one game when they looked like serious title contenders.
Now, Ohio State plays Michigan on the road, which could prove to be even more troublesome for the Buckeyes offense. According to Football Outsiders' S&P+ rating, the Wolverines are the third-best team in the country.
You worry about which Jake Rudock will show up against Ohio State, but the Buckeyes just lost to a Michigan State team that was forced to play backups Tyler O'Connor and Damion Terry at quarterback. Rudock has also looked very good in the second half of the year.
Neither Michigan nor Ohio State will make the playoff this year, but whoever wins could emerge as the Big Ten's second representative in the New Year's Six bowl games.
Given how the Buckeyes looked Saturday, that's likely to be their hated rivals from up north.
Through It All, Oregon Will be Highest-Ranked Pac-12 Team This Time Next Week
The future looked bleak for Oregon after the Ducks lost 62-20 to Utah in Week 4 and then fell to Washington State two weeks later. A losing season looked imminent with games against California, Stanford, USC and Arizona State still ahead at that point.
Yet, with a few more weeks left in the season, Oregon could finish as the best team in their conference. The Ducks finish their regular season at home to Oregon State, which should be a straightforward victory.
You wonder how Oregon's year would've unfolded if Vernon Adams was healthy all the way and had an entire offseason to work with the team.
"Marcus [Mariota] is as good a college player as I've ever seen and for Vernon to be doing the things he's doing in Marcus' shadow is amazing," said Ducks offensive coordinator Scott Frost following Adams' six-touchdown night against USC, per Andrew Greif of the Oregonian. "Vernon deserves a lot of credit for the success this team's had."
Given Oregon's porous defense, the Ducks probably would've stumbled at some point even if everything worked out perfectly for Adams under center. Still, they've put themselves in position to make one of the New Year's Six bowls.
Stanford has already earned a ticket to the Pac-12 Championship Game as the North's representative, but the Cardinal could have three losses by the time Week 13 is over. Between that and the fact Oregon owns the head-to-head advantage, the Ducks will almost certainly be ranked higher in next week's polls.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
