Clemson Media Poll: Clemson rebounds, Oregon & UCLA fall |
The updated College Football Playoff rankings have been released and so have the Clemson Media Poll rankings. Each week we poll 24 Clemson media members, including writers, radio hosts, bloggers, and podcasters to get the pulse on how those closest to the Tigers assess the lay of the land. The polls close before the College Football Playoff rankings are released and then we compare them to see where we differ from the playoff committee.
Action on the Field: Clemson bounced back from their ugly loss at Notre Dame with a solid win against the streaking Cardinals. The Tigers defense, which got embarrassed in South Bend, led the charge by holding Louisville to just 10 points until a garbage-time TD made the final score 31-16. With Trenton Simpson out with an ankle injury, fellow linebackers Jeremiah Trotter and Barrett Carter had big days. Trotter led the team with 12 tackles while Carter, who shifted from the SAM to the WILL linebacker position, led the Tigers with 3.5 tackles for loss. Perhaps that’s a positional change that could stick as the linebacker play was elevated by it. The offense had some bumps in the road but scored on five of 13 drives in the game – four touchdowns. Their biggest issue was fumbles. Will Shipley, DJ Uiagalelei, and Antonio Williams each lost one. If not for those miscues, it may have been a blowout. Clemson still lacks the firepower and killer instinct to finish teams off, but they did enough to get the job done against a quality opponent. Staying in the ACC, UNC’s Drake Maye threw for 448 yards and three TDs as the Tar Heels beat Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. The Deacons’ usual late-season collapse is happening in full force. They’ve now lost three in a row and have fallen from a 1-loss top-10 team to 6-4. The win clinches the Coastal Division for UNC. With Georgia Tech and NC State (who lost at home to hapless Boston College on Saturday) the only teams left on their schedule, there’s a good shot that the ACC Championship features two top 10 teams. The Heels don’t have a great defense, but their offense is excellent. They’ll be a handful for the Tigers and perhaps provide their toughest foe from the Coastal Division since the Tigers started making near-annual trips to Charlotte. Out west, two of the PAC-12’s banner carriers went down in exciting fashion. Oregon held a 7-point lead in the fourth quarter, before allowing a 62-yard TD pass. On the ensuing drive, they went for it on fourth down from their own 33-yard line. They failed to convert giving Washington a short field to eventually make the go-ahead field goal. The Ducks defense allowed 408 passing yards on the night. TIE GAME ? Over in LA, UCLA running back Zach Charbonnet ran for 181 yards with three TDs on 24 carries and yet the Bruins still lost to Arizona, 34-28. With Oregon and UCLA each having two-losses, they’re likely out of the playoff picture. USC will be the conference’s last hope to make the playoff, but they have games against UCLA and Notre Dame remaining before a potential conference championship game so don’t bet on it. Finally, the #4 TCU Horned Frogs were betting underdogs at Texas but won a defensive battle. It wasn’t the type of game we’ve seen from TCU this season as their explosive offensive usually leads the way, but the 17-10 win proves they can win different types of games. They travel to Waco, Texas, to play Baylor next week in what will be one of their biggest tests of the year. Clemson Media Poll vs. College Football Playoff Committee A week after dropping from #4 to #10 in both the Clemson Media Poll and the CFP Rankings, the Tigers are inching back up. The losses by Oregon and UCLA benefitted Clemson. Clemson Media had both of them ranked above the Tigers so their losses pushed Clemson up two spots. The CFP committee had Oregon and Alabama above Clemson with UCLA behind them so the Tigers only move up to #9 there. USC, LSU, and TCU all have some significant challenges ahead, but even if they all drop a game, Clemson will have to jump either Tennessee or the Michigan/Ohio State loser. That may be a tall task, but the Tigers facing Georgia in a #1 vs. #4 Peach Bowl may not be that desirable anyway. The CFP committee placing Alabama above Clemson is a notable difference between these two rankings, but the biggest difference is the ranking of North Carolina. Clemson Media put the 9-1 Coastal Division Champ Tar Heels at #10 while the CFP Committee has them all the way down at #13. They’re behind five 2-loss teams: LSU, Alabama, Utah, Oregon, and Penn State. If Michigan, Ohio State, and Tennessee all win this weekend, it looks like this will be the first year that a 1-loss conference champion is left out of the playoffs. Before this year, the regular season has been a de facto double-elimination tournament. While playoff expansion will have plenty of problems – perhaps creating more than it solves – having the automatic bids for conference champions will be a positive change. This week, we added two bonus questions to the poll. We asked voters who they would pick in potential neutral site bowl matchups of Clemson vs. Alabama and Clemson vs. LSU. Either of those matchups could happen in the Orange Bowl. Interestingly, despite LSU being higher in both of these rankings and beating Alabama in their head-to-head matchup, Clemson media is more optimistic about Clemson facing LSU than Alabama. 75% say they’d pick Clemson over LSU, but only 38% say they’d pick Clemson to beat Alabama.
Taj Davis to the house for @UW_Football ? pic.twitter.com/NRjXSyq4Gh
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