College Football Playoff rankings reaction: Overrated, underrated top 25 teams
The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings have been announced with the predicted result at the top four, with Championship Week and a slate of games fast approaching that will help sort things out ahead of Selection Sunday.
As expected, Georgia held firm at No. 1 in the new poll, followed by Michigan, which moved into the No. 2 spot formerly occupied by the Ohio State team it beat handily. TCU also moved up, to No. 3 ahead of the Big 12 Championship Game.
And there was a new face in the top four this week after USC took advantage both of its win over Notre Dame and the other movement in the rankings to occupy the final No. 4 position going into the Pac-12 title game.
But what about those crucial few spots behind the top four? Let's take a look at which teams belong, and which don't heading into Championship Week.
College Football Playoff rankings: Overrated, underrated top 25 teams
Who belongs in the new College Football Playoff rankings?
USA Today Images
Underrated: Tennessee at 7. Clearly, the selection committee was shocked by the 63 points South Carolina dropped on the Vols two weeks ago, but that game does look slightly "better," according to the committee's metrics, after the Gamecocks just beat Clemson on the road. Alabama ranking ahead of UT makes little sense given that both are at two losses and the Volunteers would seemingly have the tiebreaker thanks to the head-to-head win, not to mention Tennessee has two top-15 wins while Alabama has no top-20 wins. Plus, the Vols have a dominant win at LSU, whereas the Tide has a loss there.
Overrated: Alabama at 6. The committee should have swapped the Crimson Tide for the Volunteers here, but appear to have taken the opposite view based on recency bias, after Alabama dominated Auburn and following the Volunteers' loss to South Carolina, and the CFP may want to keep the Tide within position to potentially move into the top four if TCU and USC both lose this week by large margins.
Underrated: Washington at 12. We projected the Huskies would crack the top 10 of the rankings owing to their superb, efficient offense that ranks top-five nationally in scoring — nearly 41 points per game — and college football's most productive quarterback in Michael Penix. The two-game losing streak, allowing over 40 points each time out and including a loss to Arizona State, clearly hurt in the selection room, but it shouldn't have been enough to rank behind a Utah team with three losses, including to 6-6 Florida.
Overrated: North Carolina at 23. The committee dropped the Tar Heels six spots, but that's still not enough after the two weeks they had, losing to Georgia Tech at home, a game in which Drake Maye didn't have a touchdown and the team scored just 17 points, and in the finale against an unranked NC State that had lost two straight coming in. Moreover, the selectors put the Heels two spots ahead of the Wolfpack team that beat them. These positions should be switched at least.
Overrated: LSU at 14. Rankers have been overestimating LSU for weeks now. AP voters had it at 25 going into a bad loss at home to Tennessee, and jumped it from being unranked to 10th after beating Ole Miss and then Alabama. CFP voters were extremely high on LSU in their first ranking, too, following the AP by slotting it at 10 and then to 7 after the Bama win. In retrospect, the Ole Miss game didn't warrant that first huge jump and, combined with a close win at Arkansas and a stunning 15-point loss at a bad Texas A&M when it mattered most also factor into the equation. LSU has been 7 to 10 spots ahead of where it should be the whole second half of this season.
More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | All Teams