Sports News With College Football

The second-to-last College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night and they set up numerous questions for the final version that come out Sunday once the conference championship games are complete.

Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame and Georgia hold the top four spots. All but Georgia (11-1) are 12-0 and Georgia plays Alabama for the SEC title.

Consider: If Georgia beats Alabama, it surely earns a spot in the four-team playoff. But what happens to Alabama? It would, like Georgia, be a one-loss team. Will the committee have two one-loss teams in the final four, both from the same conference? We are assuming here that Clemson can handle Pitt in the ACC title game; Notre Dame’s regular season is done.

The two outliers, of the moment, are Oklahoma and Ohio State, both 11-1. Does an Oklahoma win over Texas for the Big 12 title move the Sooners up past either Georgia or Alabama? The Buckeyes, at No. 6, play Northwestern for the Big Ten championship after smashing Michigan last week. That victory pushed OSU up from 10th to sixth in the rankings, so another leap is not out of the question.

The bigger problem – and it will be exacerbated, not solved, on Saturday – is the number of teams qualifying for the CFP. Four? The NCAA expanded its basketball tournament to 68 (with play-in games), but only four can play for the football championship?

That number needs to be eight, but it creates other problems. These players are not professionals. Any of the current top three teams, if they win out, will have played 15 games. The NFL season is 16, and the money is much, much better.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman