Playoff committee's latest rankings have Clemson No. 3

Clemson is a win from securing a College Football Playoff spot. (ACC photo)

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Tue Dec 15 19:18:19 GMT-04:00 2020

The College Football Playoff committee set the table for this weekend’s Playoff pairings with the last midweek ranking of the season Tuesday.

Clemson maintained its No. 3 spot, trailing only Alabama and Notre Dame and ahead of Ohio State again. This is the first time in the Playoff era that the top-4 has stayed the same over four-straight rankings, but that's likely to see some kind of shakeup on Saturday.

Three of the top-4 didn’t play over the weekend due to COVID-19-related schedule changes with Ohio State (5-0) and ACC members Clemson (9-1) and Notre Dame (10-0), which will settle their conference crown in Charlotte (4 p.m./ABC).

Ohio State looks to return to action in its final showcase of a six-game season against Northwestern for the Big Ten title (noon on FOX in Indianapolis). Alabama takes on No. 7 Florida in Atlanta for the SEC title at (8 p.m./CBS). No. 6 Iowa State faces No. 10 Oklahoma at noon for the Big 12 championship.

“We have ten championships coming up and I hope we have an opportunity to play all of them, because as is always the case, it’s ranked teams against ranked teams,” Iowa AD and CFP chair Gary Barta said to ESPN. “We’re going to have ten new games to evaluate and put into the mix...I’m not going to speculate on how it may all come out...it should be an exciting weekend."

Barta, addressing the top-three and if anyone could move around this weekend, said: “Alabama is undefeated...They beat Arkansas 52-3 (on Saturday). Offense, defense, special teams -- they’re just from top-to-bottom a fantastic team. Notre Dame also is undefeated and their defense has really impressed the committee. Ian Book got better and better as the year went along. Watching the ACC Championship between Notre Dame and Clemson -- I know I’m looking forward to it and I’m sure the committee is as well.”

The final Playoff four will be announced after the weekend action on Dec. 20 with a noon ESPN-broadcasted show.

In the traditional polls, the Associated Press kept its top-4 of Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Clemson, and the Coaches Poll mirrored last week’s CFP quartet of Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State.

ESPN rates Clemson with a No. 4 game control ranking and No. 9 strength of record. For comparison, Alabama has the No. 1 spot in both game control and strength of record and Notre Dame is No. 2 in strength of record and No. 7 in game control and Ohio State No. 7 and No. 2 there respectively.

Among overall metric rankings, Alabama leads the ESPN SP+ ($; 33.3), followed by Clemson (28.3), Ohio State (27)...and now 2-loss Florida after a close home defeat to LSU (23.3), with Oklahoma fifth (23.2), Notre Dame sixth (22.8), Cincinnati ninth (20.6) and Texas A&M back in 14th (16). ESPN’s FPI has Alabama (36.5) at No. 1 also, with Ohio State next (29.3), Clemson third (27.7), Georgia fourth (23.1), OKlahoma fifth (21.7) and then Notre Dame (20.9) -- CFP No. 5 Texas A&M is down in 10th there (17.2). The FEI ratings have Alabama and Ohio State up top, Clemson fourth behind BYU, Notre Dame fifth and Texas A&M 16th.

This year’s CFP committee is chairman and Iowa AD Gary Barta, Arizona State professor Paola Boivin, Wyoming AD Tom Burman, Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione, former head coach Ken Hatfield, Colorado AD Rick George, former USC player Ronnie Lott, Arkansas State AD Terry Mohajir, former Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum, Georgia Tech AD Todd Stansbury, Florida AD Scott Stricklin, former Penn State player John Urschel.

CFP Rankings - 12/15

1. Alabama

2. Notre Dame

3. Clemson

4. Ohio State

5. Texas A&M

6. Iowa State

7. Florida

8. Georgia

9. Cincinnati

10. Oklahoma

11. Indiana