Tulane Green Wave Fans Won't Be Happy With Projected College Football Playoff
The Tulane Green Wave didn’t play in Week 13 of the college football season as they were on a bye.
It meant that they were able to sit back and watch all of the chaos which ensued.
Ranked teams were going down like flies.
The No. 5 Indiana Hoosiers and No. 14 BYU Cougars lost on the road to ranked conference foes; the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes and No. 21 Arizona State Sun Devils, respectively.
BYU losing was good news for the Green Wave, who will be facing off against the Memphis Tigers on Thanksgiving night in their regular season finale.
After that, they get the Army West Point Black Knights in the American Athletic Championship Game.
Any chance the 19th-ranked Army had at the College Football Playoff went out the window as the sixth-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish dominated them 49-14 at Yankee Stadium. That is one team that Tulane will assuredly jump in the College Football Rankings.
No. 15 Texas A&M Aggies and No. 16 Colorado Buffaloes both lost on the road to unranked foes in the Auburn Tigers and Kansas Jayhawks. No. 8 Alabama Crimson Tide and No. 9 Ole Miss Rebels both suffered their third losses of the season, falling on the road to the Oklahoma Sooners and Florida Gators, respectively.
All of the losing by teams ranked ahead of Tulane should presumably be a good thing, however, the most recent College Football Playoff update shared by Heather Dinich of ESPN hints the Green Wave are further away than one might think.
Despite so many teams losing, they are projecting the AAC juggernauts to be No. 19 when the newest rankings come out.
The only teams who fell behind them after losing are Colorado and Army.
Arizona State jumped them, and all of the other teams that lost remain ahead of them in the shaken-up 5-12 range.
If that's how things look when the CFP rankings come out on Tuesday, it would be a disappointing turn of events. It also goes to show just how much work Jon Sumrall and his team have to do.
At the bare minimum, they are going to have to keep their winning streak going.
On top of that, plenty of help will be needed from other teams. Their clearest path to the College Football Playoff would be the Boise State Broncos getting tripped up at least once, if not twice, down the stretch.
Outside of that and clinching the Group of 5 automatic bid, it is going to take a lot of upsets to jump into the mix for a place as an at-large team.
Kenneth Teape is an alumnus of SUNY Old Westbury and graduated in 2013 with an Honors Degree in Media Communications with a focus on print journalism. During his time at Old Westbury, he worked for the school newspaper and several online publications, such as Knicks Now, the official website of the New York Knicks, and a self-made website with fellow students, Gotham City Sports News. Kenneth has also been a site expert at Empire Writes Back, Musket Fire, and Lake Show Life within the FanSided Network. He was a contributor to HoopsHabit, with work featured on Bleacher Report and Yardbarker. In addition to his work here, he is a reporter for both NBA Analysis Network and NFL Analysis Network, as well as a writer and editor for Packers Coverage. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @teapester725, or reach him via email at teapester725@gmail.com.