{"id":3527,"date":"2016-11-09T17:40:59","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T22:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=3527"},"modified":"2017-12-30T16:40:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-30T21:40:27","slug":"hits-misses-cfp-rankings-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2016\/11\/09\/hits-misses-cfp-rankings-118\/","title":{"rendered":"Hits and Misses: College Football Playoff Rankings Week 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you were caught up in election coverage last night, you might have missed the reveal of the <strong>College Football<\/strong> <strong>Playoff Committees&#8217;<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.collegefootballplayoff.com\/content\/ranking\/2016\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">second set of rankings<\/a>. Last week, the committee made a surprising move, slotting one-loss <strong>Texas A&amp;M<\/strong> at #4, one spot ahead of undefeated <strong>Washington.<\/strong> That didn&#8217;t work out so well, with A&amp;M losing this past weekend to a <strong>Mississippi State<\/strong> team with a losing record. However, as <strong>William Edward Hickson<\/strong> said, &#8220;if at first you don&#8217;t succeed, try, try, try again.&#8221; Below is the committees&#8217; top 10 for this week, matched up against my top 10.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Alabama (9-0) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Alabama (9-0)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Clemson (9-0) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Michigan (9-0)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Michigan (9-0) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Clemson (9-0)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Washington (9-0) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Washington (9-0)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Ohio State (8-1) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Ohio State (8-1)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Louisville (8-1) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Louisville (8-1)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Wisconsin (7-2) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Wisconsin (7-2)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Texas A&amp;M (7-2) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Auburn (7-2)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Auburn (7-2) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Oklahoma (7-2)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-4\"><strong>Committee:<\/strong> Penn State (7-2) <strong>Omar:<\/strong> Penn State (7-2)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Hits:<\/h2>\n<h3>Wisconsin Leading the Pack of 7-2 Teams<\/h3>\n<p>The old adage in college football is that once you&#8217;ve lost two games, you can kiss your title hopes goodbye. 2007 was the last time a two-loss team even played for the title. Enter <strong>Wisconsin.<\/strong> The <strong>Badgers<\/strong> only two losses have come to <strong>Michigan<\/strong> and <strong>Ohio State,<\/strong> losing both games by just seven points. Remove those two losses, and they&#8217;re not only 7-0, but hold three wins over top 10 teams (at the time of the game). If Wisconsin wins out, they&#8217;ll have a second shot at either Michigan or Wisconsin in the <strong>Big Ten<\/strong> title game. If they win that game, we could very well see an 11-2 Wisconsin squad in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n<h3>Committee Refuses to Flip-Flop Ohio State &amp; Louisville<\/h3>\n<p>It can be painful for a college football fan to hear the words, &#8220;things will work themselves out&#8221;. However, it can also be painful to watch two teams flip-flop back and forth in the rankings each week. The top six in the current rankings means little to Ohio State and Michigan. The debate for the final playoff spot could come down to\u00a011-1 Michigan and 11-1 <strong>Louisville.<\/strong> For the time being, Louisville fans should be rooting for multiple slip-ups by the five teams positioned in front of them.<\/p>\n<h2>Misses:<\/h2>\n<h3>Texas A&amp;M is Still Here?!<\/h3>\n<p>There seems to be a love affair brewing between the committee and Texas A&amp;M. First, the committee made the surprising decision to rank the Aggies fourth in the nation last week, citing an impressive strength of schedule as their main reason. Then, on Saturday, Texas A&amp;M failed to back up their #4 ranking, losing\u00a0to a 4-5 Mississippi State team after being outplayed for most of the game. The Aggies also received word that their star quarterback\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/trevor-knight-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Trevor Knight<\/strong><\/a> would miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. However, instead of the dive in the rankings\u00a0that many experts expected the Aggies to take, the committee chose to drop them only four spots, slotting them at #8.<\/p>\n<h3>No Love for the Sooners<\/h3>\n<p>The <strong>Big 12<\/strong> is in the midst of a down year, and is unlikely to get a team into the playoff. That being said, <strong>Oklahoma<\/strong> deserves more love than they&#8217;re getting from the committee. The <strong>Sooners<\/strong> are another two-loss team whose losses have both come against ranked teams. They&#8217;re still the best team in the Big 12, led by the best QB in the Big 12, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/baker-mayfield-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Baker Mayfield<\/strong><\/a>. The Sooners finish the season with three tough tests, including <strong>Baylor, West<\/strong> <strong>Virginia,<\/strong> and <strong>Oklahoma State.<\/strong> If they win out, it&#8217;ll be interesting to see how high they rise in the final rankings.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3555\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3555\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3555 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosoncfb.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/11\/579599366.jpg\" alt=\"December 29, 2015: Playoff Logo on the AT&amp;T field during the NCAA Football Playoff Semifinal Cotton Bowl media day at ATT Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by William Purnell\/Icon Sportswire) (Photo by William Purnell\/Icon Sportswire\/Corbis via Getty Images)\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/11\/579599366.jpg 594w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/11\/579599366-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3555\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">December 29, 2015: Playoff Logo on the AT&amp;T field during the NCAA Football Playoff Semifinal Cotton Bowl media day at ATT Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by William Purnell\/Icon Sportswire) (Photo by William Purnell\/Icon Sportswire\/Corbis via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you were caught up in election coverage last night, you might have missed the reveal of the College Football Playoff Committees&#8217; second set of rankings. Last week, the committee made a surprising move, slotting one-loss Texas A&amp;M at #4, one spot ahead of undefeated Washington. That didn&#8217;t work out so well, with A&amp;M losing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1757,"featured_media":3555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,9,6,5,2,4,3],"tags":[102,497,18,7983,184,79,40,903,20,206],"class_list":["post-3527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fbs","category-acc","category-americanathletic","category-big12","category-bigten","category-featured","category-pac12","category-sec","tag-acc","tag-baker-mayfield","tag-big-12","tag-big-ten-football","tag-cfb","tag-college-football","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-national-championship","tag-sec","tag-trevor-knight"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1757"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}