Penn State football learns place in new College Football Playoff rankings

Penn State football will hold steady in its place among the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings for another week. The third edition of the rankings, released on Tuesday night, kept the Nittany Lions at No. 4.

There wasn’t much place for upward movement, with the three teams above the Nittany Lions emerging victorious from the weekend. Meanwhile, Penn State overpowered Purdue on the road, averaging 8.8 yards per play in a 49-10 win.

The Nittany Lions also ranked No. 4 in the two other major polls, staying the same as last week in the AP Poll and moving up one place in the Coaches Poll.

Under the new 12-team College Football Playoff format, the four highest-ranked conference champions receive a first-round bye. Teams seeded No. 5-8 host home playoff games on December 20-21. Therefore, despite being ranked No. 4, Penn State would be seeded No. 6 and host No. 10/No.11-seed Georgia if the playoff began today and used the current state of the conference title races.

The full CFP top 25 for Week 11 is as follows:

1. Oregon
2. Ohio State (seeded No. 5)
3. Texas (seeded No. 2 if conference champion)
4. Penn State (seeded No. 6)
5. Indiana (seeded No. 7)
6. Notre Dame
7. Alabama
8. Miami (seeded No. 3 if conference champion)
9. Ole Miss
10. Georgia
11. Tennessee (would miss playoff)
12. Boise State (seeded No. 4 if conference champion)
13. SMU
14. BYU
15. Texas A&M
16. Colorado
17. Clemson
18. South Carolina
19. Army
20. Tulane
21. Arizona State
22. Iowa State
23. Missouri
24. UNLV
25. Illinois

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What does the CFP Committee think of Penn State football so far?

© Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

Penn State football has been one of the teams mentioned the most as the debate between comparative records and strength of schedules has heated up near the end of the regular season. But in terms of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee itself, the Nittany Lions appear to be doing all they can do.

“If you look at this season and who some teams have lost to, I don’t think anybody on this call would say — would have predicted some of these teams would be losing to the teams that they lost to,” CFP Selection Committee Chair and Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel said last week. Manuel was responding to questions about if the Committee considers potential head-to-head matchups, specifically Penn State versus lower-ranked SEC teams, when determining its rankings. “We have to evaluate based on the performance on the field that we see.

“We can’t determine who would hypothetically win a game on paper. That’s not any of the things that we do. It’s not a part of our protocol to try to predict what would happen in the future. So we don’t have any conversations about that as it relates to how we rank the teams.”

Penn State football travels to Minneapolis to face Minnesota on Saturday.

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