As the ninth-ranked BYU Cougars keep winning, the national talk about them making the 12-team College Football Playoff keeps getting louder.
Following the Cougars’ latest victory last Saturday — a 37-24 road win over UCF to move to 8-0 — numerous outlets are projecting them to make the playoff, either as the Big 12 champion or as one of the at-large teams.
Here’s a look at what some national pundits have written about BYU since last Saturday.
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- ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach are both projecting the Cougars will win the Big 12 and be the No. 4 seed in the CFP. Bonagura is projecting Indiana to be the No 5 seed and play BYU in the quarterfinals, while Schlabach projects Penn State will be in that spot. Both however, are projecting the Cougars to lose that game, with Schlabach writing, “I’m probably still not giving undefeated BYU enough credit, like most everyone else in the country.”
- CBS’ Jerry Palm has Iowa State getting the No. 4 seed as the Big 12 champion but has the Cougars getting an at-large bid (No. 7) and facing 10-seeded Alabama in the first round in Provo in his projections.
- USA Today’s Matt Hayes is projecting BYU as the No. 4 seed and facing the winner of No. 5 seed Ohio State and No. 12 seed Boise State in the second round. “The Cougars keep knocking out wins, and the schedule looks more manageable by the week,” Hayes wrote.
- Like Palm, Action Network’s Brett McMurphy is projecting Iowa State getting the No. 4 seed as the Big 12 champion but BYU getting the No. 11 seed with an at-large bid. McMurphy has the Cougars facing No. 6 seed Texas A&M on the road in the first round and losing.
Like Schlabach wrote, not everyone is bullish on BYU despite its unblemished record. Here’s a sampling of national outlets that are not projecting the Cougars in the CFP field:
- The Athletic’s projections have Kansas State getting the No. 4 seed as the Big 12 champion, with both Iowa State and BYU among the five teams “on the bubble.” That said, the three teams are bunched very close together, indicating the idea that the Big 12 race is wide open.
- Bleacher Report’s Joe Tansey is projecting Iowa State will get the Big 12′s lone bid but also feels it’s a close race, writing, “The SEC, Big Ten and ACC have clear-cut favorites at the moment, but the Big 12 title race is up in the air. The BYU Cougars and Iowa State Cyclones are both undefeated and inside the Big 12 and there are two other contenders (Kansas State and Colorado) who could challenge them for the league’s automatic bid as well.”
How the new College Football Playoff works
This season is the first since the CFP was expanded from four to 12 teams. As outlined by ESPN’s Heather Dinich in May, “The five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams will earn a spot in the 12-team bracket.”
That said, “There is no limit to how many teams from one conference can qualify. The rules also don’t guarantee spots for certain conferences.”
Still, as Dinich noted, the Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big Ten champions will almost surely always qualify, as there is no minimum ranking requirement for the five highest-ranked conference champions.
As far as seeding goes, “The four highest-ranked conference champions will earn the top four seeds and receive a first-round bye,” while the other teams will play each other in the first round, with the higher seed hosting the game, either on its campus or another place nearby.
Even though seeds won’t necessarily be determined by ranking, the selection committee will still release a weekly ranking of its top 25, starting on Nov. 5.
The final ranking will come on Dec. 8, and the playoff will begin on Dec. 20.
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