It’s hard to fathom, but we’re already three weeks into the 2024 college football season -- four, if you’re one of the true sicko mode fans who gets hot and bothered about Week 0.
While it's still incredibly early, some of the pretenders and contenders for the College Football Playoff are starting to separate themselves, and some interesting storylines are taking shape.
As we close in on September and ‘spooky season’ approaches -- remember, two poor programs still have October road trips to Ames ahead of them (it’s Baylor and UCF for those keeping track) -- let’s take a look at how we expect the College Football Playoff bracket to shake out this fall based on what we have seen so far. Before you read on, you can check out what our projections last week look like.
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
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PROJECTED 12-TEAM CFP FIELD ENTERING WEEK 4
Ranking | Team | Bid Type | Previous Ranking |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ohio State | Big 10 Champion | 1 |
2 | Texas | SEC Champion | 2 |
3 | Miami | ACC Champion | 4 |
4 | Oklahoma State | Big 12 Champion | 11 |
5 | Georgia | At-Large | 5 |
6 | Tennessee | At-Large | 6 |
7 | Alabama | At-Large | 8 |
8 | Oregon | At-Large | 9 |
9 | Ole Miss | At-Large | 8 |
10 | Penn State | At-Large | 10 |
11 | Kansas State | At-Large | NR |
12 | Boise State | Mountain West Champion (G5 Representative) | 12 |
DROPPED OUT: Utah
11-of-12 teams stay the same in this week's ranking, with 6-of-12 maintaining their previous ranking. We still project Ohio State and Texas as the top two seeds and conference champions in the Big 10 and SEC respectively. Texas does not match their jump in the AP Poll to the top-ranked team in this bracket projection, as Ohio State's dominance maintains the top seed. However, Arch Manning's strong performance after a minor Quinn Ewers injury that has him day-to-day is quite reassuring for Longhorns fan.
We have Oklahoma State as projected Big 12 champion instead of Utah now -- who will drop from the rankings amidst Cam Rising injury concerns and what the team looks like without him. But they come in at the fourth seed with Miami jumping to the third seed as projected ACC Champions.
The conference layout is still the same this week - 5 SEC teams, 3 Big 10 teams, 2 Big 12 teams, 1 ACC team, and 1 Mountain West team. Georgia had a scare at Kentucky but we have enough faith to keep them in the fifth seed, and Tennessee maintains the sixth seed.
Meanwhile, Alabama, Ole Miss, and Oregon shuffle around between spots 7-9. Penn State is still a projected 10th seed, and Boise State still occupies the projected Group of 5 bid -- though UNLV will have an opportunity to knock off the Broncos later this year, and have two Power 4 wins under their belt already with Syracuse and Oregon State still on their slate as well.
The lone new team in this week's projection is Kansas State, who jumps into the projected bracket as the second Big 12 team after a dominant 31-7 victory over new Big 12 foe and Top 25 opponent Arizona in a game that will be counted as a non-conference affair in the league standings. Kansas State could be right back in the hunt for the conference title this season if they continue to look quite that good.