The College Football Playoff committee released their first set of College Football rankings heading into week 10 of the regular season.
From top to bottom, the list at the top four work, clearly at this point they’re the best four teams in the country.
At No. 1 Alabama was a no-brainer. At number two I don’t think there can be too much question surrounding Clemson especially considering they’ve been the most dominant team so far this season. At three, LSU certainly belongs especially when you consider the schedule they’ve already had to contend with this season which includes wins over Miami, Auburn, Georgia and Mississippi State.
Meanwhile, an 8-0 Notre Dame team has looked very good this season and you’re not going to get to much argument out of me with them included in the top four this week. Beyond this week though there’s going to be some growing question as whether or not the Irish truly belong.
At season’s start, Notre Dame certainly looked like they had a gauntlet to run in 2018.
However their opening season win against Michigan may be their most impressive which isn’t going to help matters towards the end of the year when other conference teams are completing the meat of their schedules. Furthermore, Notre Dame is going to be hard pressed to find wins that’ll impress the committee as the season trails on.
This week the Irish travel to Northwestern to take on the Wildcats which in turn may be their toughest opponent left. That’s considering Stanford turning out to be a dud, Virginia Tech losing their starting QB, Florida State not being your typical FSU team, catching Syracuse at home and USC once again falling out of any spotlight game at the end of the year.
Notre Dame is going to have to run up the score each week or hope some of those opponents towards the end of year catch fire so much so it’ll make for an interesting matchup suitable for a playoff resume at the end of the regular season.
Anyways, here’s how the rest of the rankings shape out.
College Football Playoff Rankings, Oct. 30
- Alabama (8-0)
- Clemson (8-0)
- LSU (7-1)
- Notre Dame (8-0)
- Michigan (7-1)
- Georgia (7-1)
- Oklahoma (7-1)
- Washington State (7-1)
- Kentucky (7-1)
- Ohio State (7-1)
- Florida (6-2)
- UCF (7-0)
- West Virginia (6-1)
- Penn State (6-2)
- Utah (6-2)
- Iowa (6-2)
- Texas (6-2)
- Mississippi State (5-3)
- Syracuse (6-2)
- Texas A&M (5-3)
- NC State (5-2)
- Boston College (6-2)
- Fresno State (7-1)
- Iowa State (4-3)
- Virginia (6-2)
