As this is being penned, it's Halloween week and we are just over one week away from the first edition of the official 2024 College Football Playoff rankings.
Most teams have finished with about 2/3 of their schedule, and we have a real picture of who we can expect to compete for the first-ever 12-team playoff, who might be able to sneak their way in, and who is ready for basketball season to start.
Let’s take a look as we enter Week 10 at how we expect the College Football Playoff bracket to shake out this fall based on what we have seen so far -- our penultimate projection before we see what the committee thinks! To see where we were during our last projection, here are our projections entering Week 8 looked like before reading on.
How are these rankings determined?
Each week this season, HailWV will be releasing a prediction for what we expect the CFP field to look like -- it will not necessarily reflect what we expect the rankings themselves to look like each week, but how the field would be seeded. As a reminder, the official process for selecting the College Football Playoff (CFP) field is as follows:
"The CFP Selection Committee ranks the top 25 teams at the end of the season, and the 12 playoff participants consist of the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams. The four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and receive a first-round bye. The schools seeded five through eight will host those seeded nine through 12 in first-round games. The quarterfinals and semifinals rotate annually among six bowl games – the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential and the Allstate Sugar Bowl."From the CFP Website
PROJECTED 12-TEAM CFP FIELD ENTERING WEEK 10
Ranking | Team | Bid Type | Previous Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Oregon | Big 10 Champion | 2 |
2 | Georgia | SEC Champion | 7 |
3 | BYU | Big 12 Champion | 8 |
4 | Pittsburgh | ACC Champion | 4 |
5 | Texas | At-Large | 1 |
6 | Penn State | At-Large | 6 |
7 | Indiana | At-Large | 10 |
8 | Notre Dame | At-Large | 12 |
9 | Boise State | Mountain West Champion (G5 Representative) | 9 |
10 | Texas A&M | At-Large | NR |
11 | Iowa State | At-Large | 3 |
12 | Miami | At-Large | 11 |
DROPPED OUT: Ohio State0
Once again, 11-of-12 teams remain from our last projected bracket, but just 3 teams maintained their previous ranking as the past couple weeks have shaken up how we view the teams in contention.
We now have Oregon atop the bracket as they followed up a big win against Top 10 conference foe Ohio State with two straight dominant performances to remain undefeated. Georgia is moved into the Top 4 as the No. 2 seed following a win over Texas in the past two weeks.
BYU continues to look strong and are now our projected Big 12 champion at the No. 3 seed, with Pitt still undefeated in the ACC and sitting as our dark horse conference champion and fourth seed.
Ohio State is the sole team to drop out this week -- with three other teams (Oregon, Penn State, Indiana) undefeated in the Big 10, Notre Dame looking even stronger than before as Texas A&M continues to impress, and multiple undefeated teams in the Big 12 and ACC, it's becoming increasingly likely that Ohio State could miss the field. However, they have both Penn State and Indiana on the schedule and can easily shift that narrative.
The conference layout this week is pretty evenly distributed, with 3 SEC teams and 3 Big 10 teams projected in the bracket, and the Big 12 and ACC remaining at 2 teams each in our predictions. Independent Notre Dame continues to look to be in a prime position to win out and earn a bid, and Mountain West stalwart Boise State also remains projected as the Group of 5 representative.