Week 5 was expected to be an exciting week of football, and boy, did it deliver. With a number of ranked matchups on the slate and many teams getting more and more into conference play, The biggest game of the week, and probably the season, did not disappoint after it seemed like it would.
The SEC has begun to beat up on each other and is the reason for all the moves in the AP Top 25 and in these College Football Playoff rankings. The Big 12 has new teams emerging as possible favorites after all the supposed top dogs now have at least one loss. Miami looked a little more mortal in their game against Virginia Tech and could be in trouble in the conference. Finally, the Big Ten hasn't made too much noise just yet, but that should come later in the season.
So with Week 5 officially in the books, here is my latest prediction of how the College Football Playoff will look at the end of the season.
Rank | Team | Why are they here | Previous ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alabama | SEC Champion | 10 |
2 | Ohio State | Big Ten Champion | 2 |
3 | Miami | ACC Champion | 3 |
4 | Kansas State | Big 12 Champion | 4 |
5 | Georgia | At-large | 1 |
6 | Texas | At-large | 5 |
7 | Tennessee | At-large | 7 |
8 | Oregon | At-large | 8 |
9 | Penn State | At-large | 9 |
10 | Ole Miss | At-large | 6 |
11 | Missouri | At-large | N/A |
12 | UNLV | MW Champion | N/A |
For the first time this season, we have a new No. 1 in town. Alabama looked like they were going to run away with the game early against Georgia, but the Bulldogs finally showed some fight in the second half and made it a game. Georgia even took the lead for a short time, but Alabama came out and showed they were the better team by scoring just a few short seconds later. For that, the Crimson Tide earned themselves the top spot in these rankings.
Kansas State was able to get back on track this week with a big win over ranked Oklahoma State, effectively knocking them out of contention for the College Football Playoff. The Wildcats are also helped out by Utah losing to Arizona as they are still without starting quarterback Cam Rising. There are still quite a few teams that need to lose some games in the Big 12 in order for the Wildcats to get back to the top, including the team they lost to, BYU, who is on a hot streak right now.
Miami showed some weakness this week against Virginia Tech and could have teams such as SMU and Louisville on their heels for the ACC title. The SEC is still leading the way with the most teams in the rankings right now, but Ole Miss took a tumble with the loss to unranked Kentucky.
Finally, the Group of Five bid officially shook up, with UNLV knocking Boise State out for this week. The Rebels had a lot of drama this week with quarterback Matthew Sluka announcing he would redshirt and not play the rest of the season due to NIL reasons. However, UNLV went out and put a beat down on Fresno State with their new starting quarterback and looked like the team to beat in the Mountain West.