On Tuesday night, November 4, the College Football Playoff selection committee announced their teams. We will take a look at the Top 10 and see who the movers and shakers were and give a few predictions on how they will shake up a little more next week.
Week 1 Week 2
(1) Mississippi State (1) Mississippi St.
(2) Florida State (2) Florida State
(3) Auburn (3) Auburn
(4) Mississippi (4) Oregon
(5) Oregon (5) Alabama
(6) Alabama (6) TCU
(7) TCU (7) Kansas State
(8) Michigan State (8) Michigan State
(9) Kansas State (9) Arizona State
(10) Notre Dame (10) Notre Dame
The top 3 teams remained the same. They all won, but none of them had a spectacular performance that warranted a jump in their current seed. Auburn may have closed the difference with a win against a top-5 team but it did not justify them being lifted above Florida State, especially with them already having one loss and Florida State and Mississippi State holding perfect records.
Mississippi was the only top 10 team that dropped out. They held the No. 4 spot and dropped out of the top 10 to No. 11. With them dropping, Oregon, Alabama and TCU all moved up one spot. We then had a few leap frogs in the bottom half of the Top 10. Kansas State jumped ahead of Michigan State and then Arizona State jumped over Notre Dame. It does not look like the committee was too impressed with either of Michigan State’s or Notre Dame’s wins. However, both of those teams will have a chance to make an impression this upcoming Saturday.
Now that we have looked at the announcements and looked at a few of the movers, it’s time to take a look at the teams that have the potential to be the shakers in the games this coming weekend that could cause the polls to move next Tuesday.
(1) Mississippi State plays a sleeper against Tenn Martin.
(2) Florida State plays 4-5 Virginia at home.
Unless, a miracle occurs, these two teams will remain #1 and #2 next week: no moving and shaking there.
(3) Auburn vs. 6-3 Texas A&M – Texas A&M is a conference foe, but Auburn should be able to handle them easily. At least there is an outside chance that this could be a good game and may send questions to the committee about the SEC.
(4) Oregon should dispose of Utah rather easily but Utah has a chance to make it a game. All five of their Pac-12 games have been decided by 1, 2, 6, 3 and 3 points.
(5) Alabama travels to LSU (#16), which is a tough road game, especially at night. However, Alabama has been scoring points the last two games and they want to show that they deserve a playoff spot. Look for Alabama to win impressively.
(6) TCU plays (7) Kansas State – thus, one of these two teams will fall. The team that falls will definitely fall out of playoff contention talk and may fall out of the Top 10.
(8) Michigan State has a big game ahead of them on Saturday. They want to prove that a Big 10 team deserves to be in the conversation as a top-4 contender. However, they host Ohio State and they definitely would love nothing better than getting a quality win against a top-10 team.
(9) Arizona State plays (10) Notre Dame – this could be a flip-the-coin game to decide who will show up to play ball and keep an outside chance of playing in the big game. The loser goes home and drops out of the Top 10. Notre Dame knows they have a favorable schedule, so they will come to the table ready to win.
Predictions
Threee Top 10 teams will drop out. They will be TCU, Michigan State and Arizona State.
The Michigan State loss and the TCU loss will potentially knock both of those conferences out of receiving one of the four bids.
(Featured image: collegefootballplayoff.com)