Baylor Bears keep No. 4 spot in SI's college football Power Rankings

Everyone's paranoid about the College Football Playoff, but that's exactly what we wanted. Who deserves to be in the top four? Martin Rickman ranks his playoff teams and the rest of the top 25 in this week's college football Power Rankings.

As a college English major always looking for independent studies in order to spend more time off campus covering the football and basketball teams, the idea of an honors thesis appeared to be the perfect plan. I was already writing, so what damage could more writing do? Plus I was getting a bunch of credits and never had to step in a classroom!

Like many college kids, I didn’t quite think things through. My thesis was on paranoia in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and after immersing in the text on the third or fourth reading, I started to get paranoid myself. Somewhere in between a rambling essay written after about 13 PBRs at the Blue Moon Diner in Charlottesville and wandering around Little Havana in a haze after Wake Forest was upset by Cleveland State at the NCAA tournament in March, I lost myself a little bit. Okay, I lost myself a lot.

That’s how I’ve started to feel this late in the season.

(O Brave New World.,

That Has Such Playoffs In’t)

So my mind drifted back to that spring and honed in on a quote from Gravity’s Rainbow that sums up we college football fans in the first year of the College Football Playoff better than anything I can write. “Paranoids are not paranoids because they’re paranoid,” Pynchon writes, “but because they keep putting themselves, f****** idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.”

We asked for this. We got exactly what we asked for. Now it’s time to see what hath college football wrought.

• ELLIS: Bowl Projections: Who's likely to make the playoff, all bowls?

1. Alabama Crimson Tide

PREVIOUS: 1

RECORD: 11-1

Last game: Beat Auburn, 55-44Next game: Saturday vs. Missouri (SEC Championship)

2. Florida State Seminoles

PREVIOUS: 2

RECORD: 12-0

Last game: Beat Florida, 24-19Next game: Saturday vs. Georgia Tech (ACC championship)

3. Oregon Ducks

PREVIOUS: 3

RECORD: 11-1

Last game: Beat Oregon State, 47-19Next game: Friday vs. Arizona (Pac-12 championship)

4. Baylor Bears

PREVIOUS: 4

RECORD: 10-1

Last game: Beat Texas Tech, 48-46Next game: Saturday vs. Kansas State

5. TCU Horned Frogs

PREVIOUS: 6

RECORD: 10-1

Last game: Beat Texas, 48-10Next game: Saturday vs. Iowa State

6. Ohio State Buckeyes

PREVIOUS: 7

RECORD: 11-1

Last game: Beat Michigan, 42-28Next game: Saturday vs. Wisconsin (Big Ten championship)

7. Arizona Wildcats

PREVIOUS: 13

RECORD: 10-2

Next game: Friday vs. Oregon (Pac-12 championship)

8. Michigan State Spartans

PREVIOUS: 8

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Beat Penn State, 34-10Next game: Regular season complete

9. Kansas State Wildcats

PREVIOUS: 10

RECORD: 9-2

Last game: Beat Kansas, 51-13Next game: Saturday at Baylor

10. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

PREVIOUS: 17

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Beat Georgia, 30-24 (OT)Next game: Saturday vs. Florida State (ACC championship)

11. Wisconsin Badgers

PREVIOUS: 14

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Beat Minnesota, 34-24Next game: Saturday vs. Ohio State (Big Ten championship)

12. Missouri Tigers

PREVIOUS: 19

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Beat Arkansas, 21-14Next game: Saturday vs. Alabama (SEC Championship)

13. Ole Miss Rebels

PREVIOUS: 21

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Beat Mississippi State, 31-17Next game: Regular season complete

14. Mississippi State Bulldogs

PREVIOUS: 5

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Lost to Ole Miss, 31-17Next game: Regular season complete

15. Georgia Bulldogs

PREVIOUS: 9

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Lost to Georgia Tech, 30-24 (OT)Next game: Regular season complete

16. UCLA Bruins

PREVIOUS: 11

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Lost to Stanford, 31-10Next game: Regular season complete

17. Arizona State Sun Devils

PREVIOUS: 12

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Lost to Arizona, 42-35Next game: Regular season complete

18. Oklahoma Sooners

PREVIOUS: 20

RECORD: 8-3

Last game: Beat Kansas, 44-7Next game: Saturday vs. Oklahoma State

19. Clemson Tigers

PREVIOUS: 22

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Beat South Carolina, 35-17Next game: Regular season complete

20. Louisville Cardinals

PREVIOUS: 23

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Beat Kentucky, 44-40Next game: Regular season complete

21. Boise State Broncos

PREVIOUS: 24

RECORD: 10-2

Last game: Beat Utah State, 50-19Next game: Saturday vs. Fresno State (Mountain West championship)

22. Auburn Tigers

PREVIOUS: 15

RECORD: 8-4

Last game: Lost to Alabama, 55-44Next game: Regular season complete

23. LSU Tigers

RECORD: 8-4

Last game: Beat Texas A&M, 23-17Next game: Regular season complete

24. Memphis Tigers

RECORD: 9-3

Last game: Beat UConn, 41-10Next game: Regular season complete

25. Marshall Thundering Herd

PREVIOUS: 18

RECORD: 11-1

Last game: Lost to Western Kentucky, 67-66 (OT)Next game: Saturday vs. Louisiana Tech (Conference USA championship)​

Next five: Utah, Minnesota, Nebraska, USC, Duke

• STAPLES: What have we learned about the playoff so far?