Penn State football stays in top 4 in last College Football Playoff rankings of regular season

Now just one win away from the postseason, Penn State football will remain in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings. The Nittany Lions held firm at No. 4 in the November 26 release of the rankings, the final update of the regular season.

Escaping Minnesota with a one-point victory over the Golden Gophers, the Nittany Lions secured a double-digit win regular season for the 22nd time in Penn State football history. With plenty of shakeup down the rankings, Saturday’s win also helped to all but assure a home playoff game if the Nittany Lions can defeat Maryland this upcoming weekend.

“You look across college football, you know, that’s hard to do,” James Franklin said of the win on Monday. “I thought our guys did a really good job of maximizing; we talk about kind of one-moment opportunities. You prepare all year long for certain opportunities to come up.”

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 Indiana if the playoff began today and used the current state of the conference title races.

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

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