Ohio State, Miami, and Clemson experienced significant declines in the latest college football rankings announced on Sunday, following losses during an eventful weekend. The upheaval led to eight of the top ten teams climbing one position, with Oregon maintaining its place at No. 1 for the seventh consecutive week.
With this shakeup, the upcoming conference championship games will feature two key matchups among the top five teams. The announcement of the College Football Playoff bracket will occur the day after the games. The unbeaten Oregon Ducks will take on No. 3 Penn State in Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship. Meanwhile, a rematch is set in Atlanta as No. 2 Texas faces No. 5 Georgia in the Southeastern Conference matchup, echoing their earlier top-five clash in October, which ended with a victory for the Bulldogs.
No. 4 Notre Dame, boasting an 11-1 record and a ten-game winning streak, will be idle until the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State’s recent defeat against Michigan marked their fourth consecutive loss to the rival team, eliminating them from the Big Ten championship contention and causing them to drop five spots to No. 7, now positioned behind Tennessee.
Following Ohio State, SMU claims the No. 8 spot, trailed by Indiana, and Boise State, which returned to the top 10 for the first time since 2011. The Broncos are now the highest-ranked Group of Five team, sitting two slots ahead of No. 12 Arizona State, who is the top team from the Big 12.
Should Boise State win the Mountain West title and secure a place among the top four-seeded conference champions in the final College Football Playoff rankings, they could potentially earn a bye into the quarterfinals.
Miami’s setback to Syracuse not only knocked them out of contention for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship but also jeopardized their aspirations for the College Football Playoff, with the Hurricanes slipping six spots to No. 14. Clemson, after losing to South Carolina, plummeted six places to No. 18 and will face SMU in the ACC championship game.
South Carolina continues its impressive run, winning six straight games including four against ranked opponents, which aided their rise to No. 13. Mississippi holds steady at No. 15, followed by Iowa State and BYU in the rankings.
Here are some notable points from the rankings: Ohio State’s 13-10 loss to Michigan marks the fifth occasion this season that a top-five team has fallen to an unranked opponent, matching a similar statistic from 2017. Miami’s 42-38 defeat against Syracuse was the twelfth such loss by a top-10 team against an unranked opponent this year, tying a record set in 2021.
It has been a decade since South Carolina ranked higher than their in-state counterpart Clemson. The last time this occurred was in 2014 when the Gamecocks achieved a No. 13 ranking before falling out of the rankings completely.
Notre Dame’s current ranking is its highest since it reached No. 4 at the end of 2020.
In other movements across the rankings, No. 23 Syracuse returns to the Top 25 for the first time since October 2022, achieving this under rookie head coach Fran Brown, who has led the team to nine wins for the first time since 2018. Their victory over Miami marked the first time they defeated a top-10 opponent since 2017.
No. 25 Memphis enters the rankings after their impressive win against Tulane as a double-digit underdog, similarly reaching the ten-win mark for the second consecutive year. Tulane, which is set to compete against No. 24 Army in the American Athletic Conference title game, dropped from No. 18 to being unranked.
Texas A&M, which held the No. 20 position last week, fell out of the rankings after losing at home to Texas and after experiencing a three-game losing streak in the SEC.
Conference representation shows the following: the SEC with seven teams (Nos. 2, 5, 6, 11, 13, 15, 22), the Big Ten with five (Nos. 1, 3, 7, 8, 21), the ACC with four (Nos. 8, 14, 18, 23), the Big 12 with four (Nos. 12, 16, 17, 20), the AAC has two (Nos. 24, 25), Mountain West with two (Nos. 10, 19), and an independent team ranks at No. 4.
Upcoming ranked matchups include: No. 1 Oregon facing No. 3 Penn State in the Big Ten championship, No. 2 Texas versus No. 5 Georgia in the SEC championship, No. 8 SMU matching up against No. 18 Clemson for the ACC championship, and No. 10 Boise State taking on No. 19 UNLV in the Mountain West championship. Additionally, No. 12 Arizona State will compete against No. 16 Iowa State in the Big 12 championship.
