Tuesday night, the Georgia Bulldogs leapfrogged the Ohio State Buckeyes for the top spot in the third week of the College Football Playoff rankings. Although, the top eight teams remained the same, Georgia’s decisive 52-17 victory over Ole Miss won over the Committee.
All of the accomplishments for the ‘Dawgs remains in front of them. With Saturday’s win, coupled with Tennessee’s loss at Missouri, Georgia will face Alabama in the 2023 SEC Championship game on Saturday, Dec. 2. If Alabama wins, it’s likely they’ll make the playoffs and Georgia would be on the outside looking in.
“Yeah, we go in there every week and repeat it again with a clean sheet,” said Boo Coorigan, chair of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. “You look at the Missouri win, Missouri’s win in turn over Tennessee and the Mississippi win, and looking at the totality of the schedule as we go through this, and 5-0 against teams that are .500 and better, the win over Florida, the win over Kentucky, and Penn State continues to be a really good team, particularly with their defense and their offense coming along and having dynamic players on the offensive side of the ball like Marvin Harrison, Jr.
Again, active strong debate in the room as we’re going through this, but we as a group came up with Georgia 1 and Ohio State 2.”
Michigan is ranked third and the Florida State Seminoles are fourth. Once again, the Wolverines and the Buckeyes will likely face off in a de facto elimination game when they face off at The Big House at high noon on Nov. 25.
Ranked fifth in this week’s CFP Rankings are the Washington Huskies. They’ve got a victory over the Oregon Ducks, who are sixth. It could be argued the Huskies proved more against stiffer competition than the Seminoles. However, on the press call, Corrigan said Washington’s close games against Arizona State and Stanford are the only reasons the men from Seattle are not in the top four.
“I think when you look at that, that is a factor in what’s going on as well as the Arizona State and Stanford, close games there with two teams that have won a combined six games this year,” said Corrigan. “But we’re going to continue to look at it and continue to evaluate week over week. You saw today a little bit when you look at the whole 25, it’s a clean sheet every week as we come in and we continue to debate it.”
Washington would have to win out, which would include a victory over Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game to force their way into the top four. Then a debate over Florida State’s win against No. 10 Louisville would merit the Seminoles falling out of the playoff picture.
College Football Playoff Rankings, Nov. 14
- Georgia (10-0)
- Ohio State (10-0)
- Michigan (10-0)
- Florida State (10-0)
- Washington (10-0)
- Oregon (9-1)
- Texas (9-1)
- Alabama (9-1)
- Missouri (8-2)
- Louisville (9-1)
- Oregon State (8-2)
- Penn State (8-2)
- Ole Miss (8-2)
- Oklahoma (8-2)
- LSU (7-3)
- Iowa (8-2)
- Arizona (7-3)
- Tennessee (7-3)
- Notre Dame (7-3)
- North Carolina (8-2)
- Kansas State (7-3)
- Utah (7-3)
- Oklahoma State (7-3)
- Tulane (9-1)
- Kansas (7-3)