Penn State extended its streak of appearances in College Football Playoff rankings to 13 editions Tuesday evening, when the first postseason pecking order of 2018 was revealed. The Nittany Lions, in the mix for six-week stretches that finished off each of the last two seasons, land at No. 14 in initial 2018 rankings. Penn State found itself on the doorstep of playoff inclusion in 2016, finishing fifth in rankings following a Big Ten Championship Game victory. Last season, the Nittany Lions debuted at No. 7 before suffering a loss at Michigan State, and ultimately finished ninth en route to a Fiesta Bowl matchup vs. Washington. Established in 2014, playoff rankings were developed in order to identify the four teams most worthy of competing in a postseason tournament that consists of two semifinal matchups and the national championship game. Alabama has won two titles (2015, 2017) within this structure, while Clemson (2016) and Ohio State (2014) also earned championships. Alabama again holds the top spot in playoff rankings, followed by No. 2 Clemson. Those teams have met in each of the last three playoffs. Beyond the pair of perennial contenders you'll find, in order, LSU, Notre Dame, Michigan and Georgia. Upon Ohio State's stunning Oct. 20 loss at Purdue, Michigan emerged as the most likely program to represent the Big Ten Conference in playoff action. The Wolverines haven't suffered a loss since the season opener — a 24-17 defeat at Notre Dame — and welcome Penn State to campus this weekend. The Nittany Lions play Michigan in "The Big House" at 3:45 p.m. ET Saturday. This marquee conference showdown sets the stage for either team to make a statement. Penn State hasn't beaten a ranked opponent on the road since November 2013 (at Wisconsin). That was Bill O'Brien's final game as Nittany Lions coach. A win for Michigan would further strengthen its case for playoff consideration, though a traditional regular-season finale vs. Ohio State (No. 10 in playoff rankings) still looms large. Penn State aims for a third consecutive win — its second against a ranked opponent — following two narrow Big Ten losses. The Nittany Lions cruised past Michigan last October at Beaver Stadium, scoring 28 unanswered points to deliver an emphatic 42-13 victory. Penn State's last visit (September 2016) to Ann Arbor resulted in a 49-10 loss, which remains the most recent game in which the Nittany Lions didn't carry a fourth-quarter lead. Penn State veterans, such as safety Nick Scott, have adopted a forward-looking approach this week. "I'd say two years ago, I shook that feeling off the next week we were getting ready for the next opponent," Scott said. "That's the code that I live by personally. So yeah, I don't have any vengeance per se. I'm just worried about this Michigan team this year, this Penn State team this year, and preparing ourselves to the best of our ability to go out there and compete and go 1-0 this week."<doc-sep>The first two months of the college football season are in the books, and now it’s time for the good month: November. This is when rivalries are settled and the College Football Playoff takes shape. On Tuesday night, the playoff selection committee released its first set of rankings in 2018. Why does it do this? Five years into this system, there’s still no practical purpose for these rankings besides giving everybody something to talk about. Here’s the full #CFBPlayoff Top 2️⃣5️⃣ rankings for games played through October 27. Is your team in? pic.twitter.com/CnmGi1MMVx — College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) October 30, 2018 Well, we like talking about things! Here’s how I would rank the top 10 teams: 1. Alabama (8–0) CFP Committee Ranking: 1 What can be said about Alabama football that wasn’t already said in the IPCC’s recent climate change report? There is still a chance that someone can stop this looming destructive force, but it seems like the proper time to act was many years ago, before things ever got to this point. Even as we heed the warnings, nobody seems equipped to take the drastic steps necessary to prevent our world’s bleak fate. Everyone has apparently decided to stand around, slack-jawed, and accept the rise of the Tide. Alabama has been dominant before, which you probably know if you’ve heard of college football. But this version of the Crimson Tide is different, thanks to the transcendent play of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Bama is generally a boa constrictor that suffocates opponents with defense. With Tagovailoa it’s a cheetah, outsprinting opponents and tearing them to shreds. Bama has won championships with mediocre offenses. For example, take 2015: The Tide ranked 30th nationally in scoring (35.1 points per game) and 24th in offensive S&P+. This year Bama leads the nation in scoring (54.1 points per game, the only team above 50) and is second in offensive S&P+. Tagovailoa is averaging 13.6 yards per pass attempt, which is on pace to be the best ever, by a lot. He has thrown 25 touchdowns against zero interceptions; no other 2018 college quarterback has thrown more than six touchdown passes without an interception. Alabama is winning games by an average margin of 38.3 points, with only one contest, a 45–23 win over Texas A&M on September 22, being decided by fewer than 29 points. And A&M is ranked! Bama is handily beating good teams and vaporizing bad ones. Tagovailoa hasn’t even thrown a pass in a fourth quarter yet. It’s halfway through the damn season and this team hasn’t been pushed enough to justify it playing its starting QB for more than 75 percent of a game. (To be fair, it’s nice to see onetime SEC Offensive Player of the Year Jalen Hurts getting snaps in those blowouts.) The story of college football in 2018 feels preordained, and the bad guys are going to win. The good news is that we’re going to get one of two fascinating outcomes: Alabama somehow fails to win the national championship. This would represent a colossal failure and would likely require an epic upset on par with any in history. If the Tide fall, it would set off the biggest party the college football world has seen since Pitbull made those Dr Pepper commercials under that overpass. (I think those commercials aired during non-college-football broadcasts, too, but it’s telling that the YouTube rip is taken from ESPNU.) Alabama wins with such ease that we can begin ranking the Tide among the sport’s all-time greatest teams. I don’t think this version of Bama is as good as the 2001 Miami Hurricanes; the Tide have already allowed 127 points, whereas The U allowed only 117 during that entire season. Still, 2018 Bama has a larger average margin of victory. (Miami won its average game by a measly 32.9 points.) Of course, there’s the worst-case scenario: Alabama wins the national championship, but not convincingly enough to be historically significant or cool. In that case, we’ll do this all over again next year. Tagovailoa is only a sophomore. 2. Clemson (8–0) CFP Committee Ranking: 2 Every few days I ask my editor whether I can write about Trevor Lawrence’s hair. “No,” he says. “We should be trying to hit on the really significant stories in the sport every week.” A few days later, I see Lawrence’s hair falling out of his helmet and cascading down the back of his jersey. I ask again. “Rodger, stop asking whether you can write about this college football player’s hair.” “But it’s LUSTROUS.” “Honestly, it’s uncomfortable how often you think about this teenager’s hair.” “IT HAS FLOW.” “Why are you so obsessed with this guy’s hair? It’s not like you’re bald. Look at how long your hair is! Wait, have you been putting off getting a haircut because you want to look more like this 19-year-old?” I log off in a huff. He’ll never understand. Despite what Garnier Fructis ads have told me, my hair will never attain Lawrence’s level of shimmer and bounce. Gonna post this magnificent image every time something happens involving Trevor Lawrence. So keep an eye out for that for the next year or three years or decade pic.twitter.com/65QwcjilNc — Rodger Sherman (@rodger) September 24, 2018 Lawrence, for those who don’t know, is Clemson’s true freshman starting quarterback. The Tigers won the 2016 national title because of the quarterback play of college football demigod Deshaun Watson. They did not win the 2017 title, because when Watson left for the NFL, he was replaced by human being Kelly Bryant, who was good, but not 420-yards-and-three-touchdowns-against-Alabama good. In fact, we learned in last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal that Bryant was more of a 124-yards-and-two-interceptions-against-Alabama type of player. Is Lawrence 420-yards-and-three-touchdowns-against-Alabama good? We don’t know yet, but he’s good enough that his emergence on campus prompted Bryant to transfer. If Bama-Clemson Part IV happens this winter, Lawrence could make all the difference. (Well, and Clemson’s defensive linemen, four of whom could play in the NFL tomorrow.) 3. UCF (7–0) CFP Committee Ranking: 12 As UCF has extended its winning streak, dating back to 2017, to 20 games, it’s steadily climbed in college football’s two main polls. The 7–0 Knights are now ninth in both the AP and coaches’ polls after entering the season at no. 21 and no. 23, respectively. It’s easy to see how we got here. Voters felt compelled to include the Knights in their preseason ballots after the last UCF team went 13–0 and claimed a national championship. Those voters didn’t feel comfortable putting it above any power-conference squad worth a damn, though, so the low 20s sounded about right. And many voters fill out their ballots during the season by looking at their rankings from the prior last week and bumping down the teams that lose. UCF has not lost, so voters have gradually notched it up to the point where the program is now inside the top 10. But the College Football Playoff rankings don’t work this way. The selection committee members haven’t been putting together weekly rankings all fall. They come together every October to begin assessing which teams have played the best thus far. This system was designed to do away with the BCS’s anchoring-and-adjustment fallacies and embrace an approach in which a collection of impartial observers could start fresh. And that has manifested itself in the selection committee freshly stating that it believes UCF is good, but not as good as any power-conference team worth a damn. Remember, the playoff committee is run by the five power conferences and has a financial incentive to not include teams from outside those leagues. The committee wants to make it seem like any team can crack the playoff, but has shown time and again that it’s uninterested in living that reality. The way the committee has ranked the Knights in the past is a prime example. It should come as no surprise that UCF was included in the first 2018 installment of the committee’s rankings, but only at no. 12 — high enough to show that the members are paying attention, but low enough to signify that the Knights are not an actual candidate for the playoff. Since the committee hasn’t had to offer its evaluation of this season’s college football landscape until now, it can slot UCF this low without looking hypocritical. I’m not putting UCF third to to prove any sort of point. I truly believe that the Knights are the third-best team in college football this season. I don’t know why this is such a radical idea: The program hasn’t lost since 2016, a stretch during which it has recorded three impressive wins over power-conference foes. (Two blowouts and a win over Auburn, which beat Alabama and Georgia last season.) The Knights’ starting QB, McKenzie Milton, has as much talent as anyone in Division I not named Tagovailoa. All good quarterbacks come from Hawaii. One mild bummer is that UCF is probably a bit worse than it was last season: In 2017, the Knights were first in college football in scoring and seventh in S&P+; this year they’re fifth in scoring and 11th in S&P+. Their offense has lost the coaching of Scott Frost, and their defense is all out of Griffin brothers. Still, I think they’d beat almost anybody in the country. 4. Notre Dame (8–0) CFP Committee Ranking: 4 It’s unpopular to have UCF ranked ahead of Notre Dame. While both teams are undefeated, most fans think that the Knights have gotten here by playing a flimsy schedule of nobodies and the Fighting Irish have gotten here by rolling through a virtuous schedule filled with mainstays of college football. We simply don’t know what would happen if Notre Dame played UCF’s schedule or vice versa, so it’s easy for the college football hive mind to presume that Notre Dame would easily breeze through UCF’s slate while UCF would crumble against Notre Dame’s. But in this case the two teams share a mutual opponent: Pitt. Notre Dame struggled mightily against the Panthers on October 13, falling behind 14–6 before scoring two late touchdowns to win 19–14. UCF blew the living hell out of Pitt on September 29, carrying a 31–7 lead into halftime before completing a 45–14 rout. To summarize: We have one common data point with which to compare these teams; in that game, Notre Dame required a dramatic comeback to win by five while UCF coasted to a 31-point demolition. Pitt, now 4–4, is not the only meh team that has given the Irish trouble this fall. Notre Dame also beat Ball State (now 3–6) by just eight points and Vanderbilt (now 4–5) by just five. Those games happened before the Irish decided to bench quarterback Brandon Wimbush in favor of Ian Book, a move that has massively boosted them. Still, I wonder if this undefeated Notre Dame team with a knack for playing close games against supposedly inferior competition is going to wind up like the last undefeated Notre Dame team with a knack for playing close games against supposedly inferior competition. 5. Michigan (7–1) CFP Committee Ranking: 5 Before this season, I wrote about how Jim Harbaugh needed to start winning this year to prove he could actually accomplish meaningful things for Michigan instead of just acting weird and excelling at recruiting. After all, the ex-quarterback who made his name coaching quarterbacks finally had a Wolverines quarterback with star potential: Ole Miss transfer Shea Patterson. And lo and behold, the Milk Man has done it. Michigan’s 7–1 start hasn’t really been due to Patterson; the Wolverines boast the best defense in the country, which ranks no. 1 in S&P+, yards allowed per game (220), and yards allowed per play (3.71). Michigan has a close loss to Notre Dame on its résumé, but that doesn’t look so bad in retrospect. 6. Oklahoma (7–1) CFP Committee Ranking: 7 The Sooners have the best offense in the country for the second straight season. Last year their Baker Mayfield–led unit ranked no. 1 in offensive S&P+ and yards per play (8.3); this year their Kyler Murray–led group also paces the nation in offensive S&P+ and yards per play (8.9).<doc-sep>
The initial College Football Playoff rankings of 2018 were released Tuesday evening, and the top 4 is No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 LSU and No. 4 Notre Dame That top 4 teams are the same as the projection 247Sports published earlier this week. Keep in mind that when teams are “comparable at the margins,” the committee placed an emphasis on strength of schedule, head-to-head competition and outcomes against quality opponents. This is what you need to know from the first CFB Playoff rankings of the year. History Indicates The First Rankings Matter The CFB Playoff selection process is no longer in its infancy. We’re in Year 5. There’s precedent to lean on and analyze. History indicates the top 7 in the first rankings should feel great, because 14 of the 16 teams that have reached the playoff have ranked seventh or better in the initial rankings. Only No. 16 Ohio State in 2014 and No. 15 Oklahoma in 2015 are exceptions. The Buckeyes, which lost to an unranked Virginia Tech in Week 2, finished the season with a trio of Top 25 wins, including a 59-0 drubbing of Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship. The Sooners, following a loss to an unranked Texas in Week 5, finished the regular season with back-to-back-to-back top 18 wins, including road victories over No. 6 Baylor and No. 11 Oklahoma State. Every other team that's reached the playoffs came from within striking distance of the top 4. I wouldn't expect much to change in that regard this year, except that Ohio State at No. 10 will likely have something to say as the season moves along. Only 13 Teams Can Reach the Playoff This is pretty simple; any team ranked after No. 13 in the initial poll isn’t going to reach the playoff – West Virginia at No. 13 is the cutoff. No current two-loss team (be it Florida, Penn State, Texas or Utah) can overcome their resume. Penn State’s Big Ten Championship chances are all but sunk, and you’re not getting into the playoff as a two-loss team without a conference title. The same applies to Florida, which is already blocked out of the SEC Championship game. Texas, for its part, can’t overcome a pair of unranked losses (Maryland and Oklahoma State) even with a conference title. Utah won't get into the CFB Playoff as a two-loss Pac-12 program. What about UCF? The Knights were given a boost by slotting at No. 12. They went unbeaten last and finished at No. 12 in the rankings. The committee is showing UCF more respect and that matters. However, it's going to be extremely tough for the Knights to make the climb. UCF can’t be any more dominant than it is with an average scoring margin of 24.3, which is third in the FBS behind Alabama and Clemson. The problem is the schedule. UCF’s SOS currently slots 125th nationally per Sagarin. Even with some quality games later in the year (South Florida, Cincinnati) that’s not good enough to get it done. When the Knights finished 12th last year, they had a pair of Top 25 wins. As of now, UCF would not have a Top 25 win on its schedule if it finished 12-o again. That leaves the 11 Power Five one-loss or undefeated programs. No losses, one loss or even two; it’s from that group that the four playoff teams will emerge. Expect that number to shrink quickly considering four of the 11 have head-to-head meetings against each other this week. We’re Trending Toward Less Parity College football made a shift to the CFB committee’s selection process last year. Instead of the group deliberating six times, it would meet one week later in the season and rank teams the final five weeks of the year. That’s resulted in a notable shift in the number of contending programs upon the initial rankings release. Let’s quickly run through the number of Power Five programs with one-loss or fewer upon the date of the committee’s first ranking: 2014 (18), 2015 (15), 2016 (11), 2017 (9), 2018 (11). There’s been a noticeable drop the last few years in the number of realistic contenders. Part of that is simply that the rankings come out later. But a big portion of it is that college football has less parity than ever. Alabama’s reached the playoffs every year and ranks No. 1. Clemson’s made the playoff three straight seasons and ranks No. 2.