The first rankings from the College Football Playoff selection committee will be unveiled on Tuesday night, and only one thing seems certain: Georgia will be No. 1.
The undefeated Bulldogs have been dominant on defense and have already clinched the SEC East. But which teams will come next? Oklahoma is undefeated and has scored more than 50 points in three of its past four games. However, the Sooners earlier struggled to put away West Virginia and, ahem, Kansas.
Cincinnati is unbeaten too, but it might have only one victory that actually resonates with the selection committee: a 24-13 road win at Notre Dame. Michigan State is also 8-0 and finally has some meat on its résumé after a 37-33 victory against rival Michigan.
And what about the one-loss teams? Defending national champion Alabama might be the second-most talented team behind Georgia, but why did the Crimson Tide’s defense play so poorly in a 41-38 loss at Texas A&M? And while Ohio State is playing like one of the four best teams in the FBS, can the committee really put the Buckeyes ahead of one-loss Oregon? The Ducks have perhaps the best victory of anyone, 35-28 at Ohio State on Sept. 11.
Here are some overreactions as we get ready to see the first CFP rankings:
The selection committee is going to treat Cincinnati unfairly
If Cincinnati isn’t among the top four teams in Tuesday night’s rankings, we’re going to hear conspiracies about how the selection committee is just never going to put a Group of 5 team in the CFP, and, dadgumit, it’s not fair. The Bearcats are No. 2 in the AP poll and the AFCA coaches poll, so they have to be No. 2 in the CFP rankings, right?
Well, what if the Bearcats don’t deserve to be in the top four, at least not yet? Sure, Cincinnati’s 11-point win at Notre Dame is one of the better nonconference victories of the season. But who else have the Bearcats defeated so far? One other FBS team with a winning record (5-3 Central Florida) and five other opponents (Miami of Ohio, Indiana, Temple, Navy and Tulane) who are a combined 12-28.
When Cincinnati knocked off Indiana and Notre Dame in consecutive games, there was a popular belief that beating two Power 5 opponents and winning the AAC might be enough to get the Bearcats in the playoff. Here’s the problem: The Hoosiers aren’t any good. In fact, they haven’t won a Big Ten game and haven’t even defeated a Power 5 opponent this season. Their two victories came against FCS program Idaho and Western Kentucky. And the Bearcats’ remaining regular-season schedule ranks No. 82 and includes just one opponent with a winning record (SMU at 7-1).
In my opinion, for whatever that’s worth, Cincinnati deserves to be at about No. 6 in the initial CFP rankings, behind Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan State and Oregon (and maybe even Ohio State). If the Bearcats defeat SMU at home on Nov. 20 and then Houston in the AAC championship game, then we can start having a conversation about whether they deserve to be in the top four.
Georgia is playing the wrong quarterback
The No. 1 Bulldogs clobbered rival Florida 34-7 on Saturday, even though the Gators outgained them in total offense by a yard, 355-354. It wasn’t quarterback Stetson Bennett‘s best performance, as the former walk-on completed 10 of 19 passes for 161 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. The touchdown was a very nice throw to Kearis Jackson, and the picks were poor decisions he’d undoubtedly like to have back.
With four games to go in the regular season, the burning question around the Peach State — other than whether the Braves are really going to blow the World Series — has become: Can the Bulldogs beat Alabama in the SEC championship game with Bennett at quarterback?
Former starter JT Daniels, a transfer from USC, hasn’t played in more than a month because of a lat injury. Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said Daniels was available to play against the Gators and practiced some during the bye week.
But Daniels didn’t play, even after Georgia pulled away in the second half. Smart said his staff elected to go with Bennett for the fourth straight game because he’d practiced more than Daniels over the past two weeks and they wanted to keep the continuity he had with the offense.
On Monday, Smart said Bennett’s mobility was also a factor in deciding to go with him.
“It’s a separator, but I mean there’s things that JT is better at than Stetson, but it’s one of the things that’s a factor,” Smart said “Mobility in a quarterback is critical. It’s not that JT’s immobile … it’s just that Stetson is very mobile. Stetson is able to make some plays with his feet.
” I thought there were five or six plays in the [Florida] game where his mobility was a factor. We had breakdowns, and you’re going to have some, on offense. And when you have those, you gotta have somebody who can get you out of a bad play, and I don’t mean by way of check, I mean during the play and he does a good job of doing that.”
At this point, Smart might do more damage to his team’s chemistry by replacing Bennett with Daniels, unless Bennett plays poorly. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
“When you talk about trusting a guy, I trust [Bennett] because he goes out and works, and always puts his best foot forward every day,” Georgia linebacker Nolan Smith said. “Even though it may not look pretty to y’all, he gets the job done.”
A quarterback will win the Heisman
Let’s once again count the quarterbacks who have fallen off the Heisman cliff this season: Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler was benched in favor of freshman Caleb Williams; Daniels and Miami’s D’Eriq King are hurt; North Carolina’s Sam Howell and USC’s Kedon Slovis are leading 4-4 teams; and Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei is directing a 5-3 team.
Even fast-rising candidates, such as Kenny Pickett at Pitt and Matt Corral at Ole Miss, faltered in losses on Saturday. Pickett threw for 519 yards with three touchdowns, but also had two interceptions in a 38-34 loss to Miami. Corral was held without a touchdown pass (he did have a scoring run) in a 31-20 defeat at Auburn.
So who’s left in the Heisman race? Michigan State’s Kenneth Walker III might be the most deserving candidate at this point. He ran for 197 yards with five touchdowns against the Wolverines. The Wake Forest transfer leads the FBS with 149.3 rushing yards per game to go with 14 touchdowns. And there are still quarterbacks to consider: Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud certainly remain in the mix, along with Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder and Oklahoma’s Williams.
Better yet, how about breaking up the stiffed-armed trophy and giving it to the stars of Georgia’s defense? Linebacker Nakobe Dean can take the head, linebackers Nolan Smith and Adam Anderson can have the arms, and give the rest to defensive linemen Jordan Davis, Devonte Wyatt, Travon Walker and Jalen Carter. No unit has made a bigger impact this season.
Clemson was the most overrated team in 2021
We knew from the start of the 2021 season that the Tigers weren’t going to be nearly as good without quarterback Trevor Lawrence and tailback Travis Etienne, as they struggled to do much of anything in a 10-3 loss to Georgia in the opener. As injuries piled up on both sides of the ball, the Tigers limped to a 2-2 start before rallying to win three of their past four games.
While most people wrote off Clemson pretty early, we failed to recognize that Iowa was just fool’s gold during its 6-0 start. The Hawkeyes knocked off rival Iowa State, blew out Maryland on the road and then squeaked past Penn State at home. Iowa looked like a CFP contender and Big Ten favorite, at least on defense.
But then the wheels came off. The Hawkeyes lost to Purdue 24-7 at home and 27-7 to Wisconsin on the road. They threw four interceptions against the Boilermakers and lost three fumbles against the Badgers. Iowa managed just 156 yards of offense against Wisconsin, including 24 rushing.
Through eight games, the Hawkeyes rank 85th in scoring (25.4 points), 104th in passing (186.5 yards), 117th in rushing (105 yards) and 124th in total offense (291.5) among FBS teams. It’s a shame, too, because they had a CFP-worthy defense.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — LSU coach Brian Kelly was caught on camera screaming at one player and getting yelled at by another.
The sideline scenes were clear signs of frustration for a program that was on its way to losing a third consecutive game, at unranked Florida on Saturday. Now, the Tigers (6-4, 3-3 SEC) will be the ones out of the polls following the 27-16 defeat.
And the LSU fan base might be out of patience with Kelly.
“This is a simple exercise of do you want to fight or not?” Kelly said after his team’s latest loss. “Do you want to fight and take responsibility as coaches and players that we’re not playing well and we’re struggling right now?
“There’s a rough spot here that we have to fight through, and we have to do it together.”
Kelly appeared to get into it with wide receiver Chris Hilton Jr. in the first half. Kelly got in Hilton’s face after a play, and online lip readers suggested Kelly eventually called Hilton “uncoachable.”
Late in the third quarter, cameras captured wideout Kyren Lacy yelling at Kelly on the sideline after an empty possession.
In the clip, Lacy could be seen apparently letting Kelly have it. The coach’s eyes widened as he seemingly realized what was happening. The ABC camera quickly cut away from the interaction.
LSU lost to Florida for the first time since 2018. This one came despite the Tigers running 92 plays and having the ball for more than 41 minutes.
“We’re going to put guys on the field that are going to fight and do everything they can do to correct where we are right now — and that is struggling with consistent execution,” Kelly said. “I think we’ve seen it enough to know we have to be better as coaches and players.”
Kelly’s streak of 10-win seasons will end at seven. Kelly won double-digit games in each of his last five seasons at Notre Dame and extended it with consecutive 10-win campaigns in Baton Rouge.
But losing three in a row, to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida, makes it impossible to get past nine victories.
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia coach Kirby Smart wouldn’t say if being ranked 12th by the College Football Playoff selection committee motivated the Bulldogs to prove a point in Saturday night’s game against No. 7 Tennessee.
Coming off last week’s ugly 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, their second defeat of the season, the Bulldogs would be the first team left out of the playoff if the 12-team bracket was based on the current rankings. No. 13 Boise State would have received the automatic bid as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion and have jumped them.
That’s probably not the case anymore, after Georgia manhandled Tennessee 31-17 at Sanford Stadium.
“I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t,” Smart said of the CFP selection committee. “I wish they could really define the criteria. I wish they could do the eyeball test where they come down here and look at the people we’re playing against and look at them. You can’t see that stuff on TV, and so I don’t know what they look for. But that’s for somebody else to decide. I’m worried about our team.”
For the first time in a while, Georgia looked pretty good on both sides of the ball against Tennessee. The Bulldogs fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter but came back to tie the score at 17 at the half. Tennessee had only eight first downs and didn’t score in the final 30 minutes. It was the ninth time a Josh Heupel-coached team has scored fewer than 20 points; four of them came against Georgia.
The Bulldogs won their 29th consecutive game at home and defeated the Volunteers for the eighth straight time, all by double digits.
“Our kids showed resilience,” Smart said. “I’m proud of them. Look, it was a week ago, a couple of hours, that we were dead and gone. People had written us off. It’s hard to play in this league, week in and week out, on the road.”
After the Ole Miss loss, Georgia fell from third to 12th in the CFP rankings. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the chairman of the CFP selection committee, said the Bulldogs’ inconsistent offense and turnovers were reasons why.
“They’re not in that environment,” Smart said. “They’re not at Ole Miss in that environment, playing against that defense, which is top five in the country with one of the best pass rushers in the country, and they’re fired up. They got a two-score lead, and they’re coming every play. They don’t know. They don’t understand that.”
Georgia has played the most difficult schedule in the FBS, according to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, and has the third-best strength of record, which reflects whether an average Top 25 team would have a team’s record or better against its schedule.
The Bulldogs also lost 41-34 at Alabama on Sept. 28 after falling behind 28-0 in the first half. They defeated Clemson 34-3 in their opener and won 30-15 at Texas on Oct. 19.
Adding a dominant victory over Tennessee should help Georgia’s CFP chances. It closes the regular season with two non-SEC games at home, against UMass on Saturday and rival Georgia Tech on Nov. 29.
“It’s just the tale of each week, and we’re trying to be the cumulative, whole, really good quality team and not be on this emotional roller coaster that’s controlled by people in a room somewhere that may not understand football like we do as coaches,” Smart said. “We as coaches, look at people and say, ‘What can we do better? How do we get better?’ I respect their decision. I respect their opinion. But I mean, it’s different in our league.”
One of the big reasons for Georgia’s success against Tennessee was quarterback Carson Beck, who completed 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He had thrown 12 interceptions in the previous six games.
Beck also scored on a 10-yard run that gave Georgia a 24-17 lead with 5:32 left in the third quarter.
“I didn’t really feel any pressure, to be honest,” Beck said. “I stood up in front of the team on Monday and talked to them about how I felt about how our season has gone. I told them that whatever has happened has happened and that all we can control is what we can control moving forward.”
Georgia’s offensive line didn’t allow a sack, while the Bulldogs sacked Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava five times. Georgia had 453 yards and went 5-for-5 in the red zone.
“I think everybody understood the situation that we were in,” Beck said. “When our backs are against the wall, the only way out is through what is in front of you.”
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Nov 17, 2024, 02:11 PM ET
Julian Lewis, the No. 2 player and quarterback in the 2025 class, decommitted from USC on Sunday, sources told ESPN, sealing a seismic development for one of the nation’s top prospects in the closing weeks of the recruiting cycle.
Lewis’ decommitment, which had been expected, comes the day after the 6-foot-1, 195-pound quarterback took an unofficial visit to Georgia for the game against Tennessee. He also visited Colorado on Oct. 26 and expressed interest in Indiana throughout his recruitment.
The plan remains for Lewis to commit in the upcoming weeks and enroll early in school, according to sources. He’s the top uncommitted player in the class of 2025 and his choice looms as one of the biggest stories of the early signing period with Colorado, Georgia and Indiana expected to contend for his signature before the signing period opens Dec. 4.
Sources also told ESPN on Sunday that four-star Texas A&M quarterback pledge Husan Longstreet, No. 47 in the 2025 ESPN 300, has flipped his pledge to USC in the wake of Lewis’ departure from the Trojans’ incoming class.
USC quarterbacks coach Luke Huard attended Longstreet’s playoff game at Corona Centennial High School in California on Friday night, and ESPN’s No. 4 pocket passer visited the Trojans during their game against Nebraska on Saturday.
Lewis had been verbally committed to the Trojans since Aug. 22, 2023. Yet questions had swirled over his recruitment from the summer into the fall and all the way through to his decommitment from USC on Sunday.
Lewis’ move marks the latest blow to a USC class that has now lost six commitments from the 2025 ESPN 300 in this cycle.
That list of high-profile departures from Lincoln Riley’s incoming class includes five-star defenders Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson, and Lewis’ exit stands as USC’s third recruiting loss in the past seven days following the flips of defensive lineman Hayden Lowe (Miami) and cornerback Shamar Arnoux (Auburn).
The Trojans sat ninth in ESPN’s latest class rankings for the 2025 cycle prior to Lewis’ decommitment.
With the move, Lewis instantly regains status as the one of nation’s most sought-after uncommitted prospects. He first entered that realm in 2022 when he burst onto the national scene with 4,118 yards and 48 touchdowns while leading Carrollton to the Georgia 7A state title game in his freshman season.
That debut campaign earned Lewis a place as the No. 1 prospect in the 2026 class before he reclassified into the 2025 cycle earlier this year, several months after his commitment to USC last August.