Alabama still No. 1 in College Football Playoff rankings; top four unchanged

The College Football Playoff committee released another set of rankings on Tuesday evening, as we inch ever closer to the finish line where the rankings will be

The College Football Playoff committee released another set of rankings on Tuesday evening, as we inch ever closer to the finish line where the rankings will be final. If the season ended today, the Top 4 would be No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Oregon, No. 3 Florida State and No. 4 Mississippi State, the same four as last week.

The season did not end today, though, so there will be more movement in the rankings after this week’s games.

Here is the full top 25, with three quick thoughts below:

1 Alabama

2 Oregon

3 Florida State

4 Mississippi State

5 TCU

6 Ohio State

7 Baylor

8 UCLA

9 Georgia

10 Michigan State

11 Arizona

12 Kansas State

13 Arizona State

14 Wisconsin

15 Auburn

16 Georgia Tech

17 Missouri

18 Minnesota

19 Ole Miss

20 Oklahoma

21 Clemson

22 Louisville

23 Boise State

24 Marshall

25 Utah

• All eyes are on that fourth spot. If Alabama, Oregon and Florida State win out, those three teams should stick in the playoff, leaving one remaining team to play its way in. Chances are that team will come from the remaining one-loss teams near the top. Mississippi State can help its cause with a solid performance in the Egg Bowl, but TCU, Baylor and Ohio State are nipping at the Bulldogs’ heels.

• There’s still a chance that a two-loss team could get in, although it would take some real football magic at this point. (We should know by now that football magic tends to come out in droves at the end of November.) The most likely culprits are Georgia or UCLA. Georgia would need Missouri to lose to Arkansas to get to Atlanta, then the Bulldogs would have to beat Alabama to stake their claim. A win over Georgia Tech this Saturday is likely necessary as well. UCLA can win the Pac-12 South by beating Stanford and would have a rematch against Oregon. The committee seems to value the Pac-12 highly, with the league getting five ranked teams this week and four in the Top 15.

• We finally have a Group of Five representative again. In fact, we actually have two! Marshall came in at No. 24, and Boise State is right above the Herd at No. 23. The committee probably had to pick between Marshall, Boise State and Colorado State, and each team had its own case. Colorado State has just one loss, but lost head-to-head to the Broncos. The Thundering Herd remain undefeated, but their schedule has been much-maligned all season long and they certainly didn’t help their cause needing just about every second to outlast UAB last weekend. Conference championships will come into play, but both teams have to be breathing a sigh of relief to finally be in the rankings at this point.