College Football Playoffs: Clemson Number One, Alabama Sneaks In

The first College Football Playoffs ranking is in, and Clemson is number one. The Tigers and their quarterback Deshaun Walker have earned the top spot, but can they hold it throughout the rest of the season? Committee member Jeff Long noted beating Notre Dame and the quality of their wins.

At number two, LSU and Leonard Fournette push into the rankings. The reigning National Champions Ohio State Buckeyes are at number three.

In the final spot, the Alabama Crimson Tide sneak into the playoffs.

At number five and six are Notre Dame and Baylor. The Baylor Bears lost their quarterback Seth Russell to a neck injury and will be starting a freshman for the rest of the season.

The most difficult team to evaluate was Baylor and TCU because of strength of schedule according to Jeff Long.

Here’s the rest of the top ten.

Frankly I’m surprised TCU fell that far and Notre Dame is that high. Everyone else I agree with but those two I’m uneasy about. Notre Dame barely beat Temple so I would have thought they’d be lower. The committee is certainly looking more at strength of schedule in their decision-making this year.

Here’s the entire of the rankings:

1. Clemson
2. LSU
3. Ohio State
4. Alabama
5. Notre Dame
6. Baylor
7. Michgan State
8. TCU
9. Iowa
10. Florida
11. Stanford
12. Utah
13. Memphis
14. Oklahoma State
15. Oklahoma
16. Florida State
17. Michigan
18. Ole Miss
19. Texas A&M
20. Mississippi State
21. Northwestern
22. Temple
23. UCLA
24. Toledo
25. Houston

There are a couple of teams I notice missing. Cal, Wisconsin, North Carolina and USC did not make the poll this time around, but there’s still a lot of games to play. Last year, only one team in the original rankings made the playoffs, that being Florida State.

Here are the NFL Mocks predictions entering into the night. The poll will undergo several facelifts as we head towards the final poll at the end of the season.

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