Clemson drops again in ESPN Playoff ranking outlook

A week off caused some to not rate the Tigers as highly as previously.

Brandon Rink - Assoc. Editor / Staff Writer - Sunday, October 27 2024

Clemson fell again ESPN's Playoff ranking projection this week ($).

Coming out of the open date, the Tigers dropped two spots time to the last at-large place at No. 11. The as-it-stands call would seed the Tigers No. 11 as well and send them to 6-seed Ohio State for the new 12-team College Football Playoff first round, with the winner moving on to face projected ACC champ Miami.

"The Tigers had a bye week, but have won six straight since their season-opening loss to Georgia," ESPN's Heather Dinich writes. "As good as Clemson has looked during its winning streak, though, the committee will recognize that Virginia is its best win -- and North Carolina just handed the Cavaliers their fourth loss of the season (41-14) in more convincing fashion than Clemson was able to (48-31). None of Clemson's wins is against a ranked team, and all of its opponents have at least four losses. Most, if not all, of the contenders ranked ahead of Clemson are either undefeated or have a better résumé."

The first Playoff committee rankings come on November 5 and run through the end of the conference championship games (Dec. 8).

A week with no Clemson football did enough to jog the Tigers well out of a unanimous CFP prediction for ESPN analysts overall also, with seven of the 13 now leaving Clemson out.

In those picks, playoff matchups include an 8-seed Clemson hosting Tennessee (Max Olson) or Indiana (Mark Schlabach), a 9-seed Clemson traveling to Ohio State (Bill Connelly) or Indiana (Paolo Uggetti) or a 10-seed Clemson heading to Ohio State also (Andrea Adelson).

ESPN's Playoff Predictor has Miami with the best CFP odds overall (90%) and Clemson second-best for the ACC but 16th overall (32%), just ahead of new league teammate SMU (30%). Clemson is given at least a 72% chance to make the CFP if it can finish the regular season 11-1.

Clemson dropped three spots to No. 10 in ESPN's power rankings.

"The 6-1 Tigers are coming off their bye week, and it's hard to find much to seriously nitpick about their defense in ACC play. Dabo Swinney needed to see improvement from the Tigers' run defense after Stanford burned them for 236 rushing yards, and they responded by holding each of their past three opponents under 90 rushing yards. He'd also like to see their backups do a better job of getting stops. Clemson has allowed 107 points over five conference games, but 54 of those points were scored in garbage time when the Tigers were up big. Virginia dropped 21 points in the fourth quarter of their 48-31 loss last week. Competitive depth on defense is a must if this team is looking to make a deep CFP run," Max Olson wrote.

The full Top 10 is Oregon, Georgia, Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, Miami, Indiana, BYU, Texas A&M and Clemson.

Clemson is No. 14 in ESPN's SP+ metric ($) with a No. 10-ranked offense, No. 25 defense and No. 103 special teams group.