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Forde: College Football Playoff Projected Bracket After Week 8

The Big Ten and SEC are comfortably at the top of the CFP pecking order currently, with it getting murky in spots five through 12.

Pat Forde

Ohio State leads five teams from the Power 2 conferences currently projected at the top of the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State leads five teams from the Power 2 conferences currently projected at the top of the College Football Playoff. / Samantha Madar/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Miami’s loss opens the door for a scenario only Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC counterpart Greg Sankey could love, with the top four seeds and attendant byes all going to teams from their conferences. For now, those two leagues have the top five spots, which seem to be comfortably ahead of everyone else.

The difficulty comes in selecting and seeding everyone else. Miami still has two quality wins (Notre Dame and South Florida). BYU got its best win of the season Saturday over rival Utah. Georgia Tech also got its best win of the year, at Duke, thanks to some fierce red zone defense. Oregon bounced back, Mississippi took a step back and Vanderbilt won a potential elimination game against LSU—to set up another elimination game this week against Missouri.

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College Football Playoff Seeding After Week 8

  1. Ohio State (7–0)
  2. Indiana (7–0)
  3. Texas A&M (7–0)
  4. Alabama (6–1)
  5. Georgia (6–1)
  6. Miami (6–1)
  7. BYU (7–0)
  8. Georgia Tech (7–0)
  9. Oregon (6–1)
  10. Mississippi (6–1)
  11. Vanderbilt (6–1)
  12. South Florida (6–1)

Also considered

  • Notre Dame
  • Mississippi
  • Oklahoma
  • Missouri
  • Virginia
  • Louisville
  • Texas Tech

First-round games

  • No. 12 South Florida at No. 5 Georgia
  • No. 11 Vanderbilt at No. 6 Miami
  • No. 10 Mississippi at No. 7 BYU
  • No. 9 Oregon at No. 8 Georgia Tech

Quarterfinals

  • Cotton Bowl: No. 4 Alabama vs. winner of No. 12 South Florida at No. 5 Georgia
  • Sugar Bowl: No. 3 Texas A&M vs. winner of No. 11 Vanderbilt at No. 6 Miami
  • Orange Bowl: No. 2 Indiana vs. winner of No. 10 Mississippi at No. 7 BYU
  • Rose Bowl: No. 1 Ohio State vs. winner of No. 9 Oregon at No. 8 Georgia Tech

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Pat Forde
PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.

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