College football playoff ranking predictions

Boh Suh, Staff Writer
November 23, 2021

Another chaotic week in the college football, will make the playoff spots interesting. With the collapse of Oregon and Wake Forest, the winner of those games, Utah and Clemson will likely show up in top 25 this time.  

The CFP committee focuses on a head-to-head matchup (except for the matchup between Michigan and Michigan State for some reason), so I ranked the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) teams all together from 18 to 20 (Pittsburgh – Clemson – Wake Forest).  

I was not sure how far I should drop Wake Forest because they were ranked No. 10. I thought about putting Wake Forest as No. 17, but Utah’s beatdown on Oregon was just too good to ignore as Utah was already ranked No. 23 last week. This is why I placed the three ACC teams in that order. 

A notable move up that I predict is Ohio State as No. 2 after a dominant win against No. 7 Michigan State. I expected Ohio State to win, but I did not expect them to win by 49 points. It was an impressive win by Ohio State, and they will see another big matchup next week at likely No. 5 Michigan. 

Another exciting prediction will be Cincinnati moving up to No. 4. After Oregon loses, the next team should be Cincinnati as they had a convincing win against SMU. This team deserves to be in top four, and I hope that the committee moves them up where they deserve to be. 

Here are my CFP ranking prediction. I also included the Associated Press (AP) Poll and the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) poll as a reference. 

  1. Georgia(11-0)– 1 (Week 12 CFP), 1 (Week 13 AP), and 1 (Week 13 AFCA)  
  2. Ohio State (10-1)– 4, 2, 3 
  3. Alabama (10-1)– 2, 3, 2
  4. Cincinnati (11-0)– 5, 4, 4
  5. Michigan (10-1)– 6, 6, 6
  6. Notre Dame (10-1)– 8, 5, 5
  7. Oklahoma State(10-1)– 9, 7, 7 
  8. Oregon (9-2)– 3, 11, 11
  9. 9. Baylor (9-2)– 11, 9, 10
  10. 10. Ole Miss (9-2)– 12, 8, 8
  11. 11. Oklahoma (9-1)– 13, 10, 9
  12. 12.Michigan State (9-2)– 7, 12, 13 
  13. BYU (9-2)– 14, 13, 15
  14. Wisconsin (8-3)– 15, 18, 18
  15. Texas A&M (8-3)– 16, 14, 14
  16. Iowa (9-2)–17, 17, 12 
  17. Utah (8-3)– 23, 16, 19
  18. 18. Pittsburgh (9-2)– 18, 20, 17
  19. 19. Clemson (8-3)– Not ranked, Not ranked, Not ranked
  20. Wake Forest (9-2)– 10, 21, 21 
  21. 21. San Diego State (10-1)– 19, 22, 22
  22. NC State (8-3)– 20, 24, 24
  23. UTSA (11-0)– 22, 15, 20
  24. Houston (10-1)– 24, 19, 16
  25. Mississippi State (7-4)– 25, not ranked, not ranked