Ole Miss lost a coach and moved up a spot anyway. Notre Dame didn’t lose a thing but the Irish fell. The release Tuesday of the latest College Football Playoff rankings produced its fair share of eye-openers and head-scratchers — plenty to talk about before the final rankings and the actual pairings for the 12-team playoff come out this weekend after a slate of conference title games.
Ole Miss lost a coach and moved up a spot anyway.
Notre Dame didn’t lose a thing but the Irish fell.
The release Tuesday of the latest College Football Playoff rankings produced its fair share of eye-openers and head-scratchers — plenty to talk about before the final rankings and the actual pairings for the 12-team playoff come out this weekend after a slate of conference title games.
Undefeated Ohio State and Indiana remained at 1 and 2 in the rankings, while Georgia moved to third and Texas Tech rose to No. 4.
The rest of the top 12: Oregon, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU and Miami.
Even though Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin left the school for LSU last weekend, the selection committee moved the Rebels up one spot to No. 6. Committee chairman Hunter Yuracheck explained the panel talked about the upheaval in Oxford but didn’t quite know what to make of it.
“We don’t have any way to evaluate what Ole Miss looks like, plays like, without its head coach,” Yurachek said. “We can only evaluate what we know, and what we know now is Ole Miss is an 11-1 football team.”
Notre Dame is a 10-2 football team, same as Alabama, but those two flip-flopped spots after wins last week.
The Tide is now ranked No. 9 — in a much better position to grab an at-large berth if they lose to Georgia in the SEC title game — while Notre Dame is No. 10, a little more on the bubble despite a 10-game winning streak.
Yurachek described the debate pitting two of the nation’s most storied programs as one “that has really split our committee room.
