STARKVILLE — Moments after the Mississippi State football team suffered its first loss of the season at Alabama, tailback Josh Robinson was asked if the Bulldogs still belonged in the top four of the College Football Playoff Committee’s weekly rankings.
“Definitely we do,” Robinson said. “We slipped up today, but we should still be in the top four.”
Robinson was right.
Three days after a 25-20 loss, the Bulldogs (9-1) received good news Tuesday night when the committee’s rankings were revealed. Despite the setback, MSU fell three spots to No. 4. MSU now sits behind Alabama (9-1), Oregon (9-1), and reigning national champion Florida State (10-0). The Seminoles are the only unbeaten team remaining from a Power Five conference.
If the season ended today, MSU would face Alabama in the first College Football Playoff.
“That’s good,” said MSU senior offensive lineman Ben Beckwith when he heard the news. “We are moving on to Vanderbilt and we are focused on our next game, but you definitely wanted to remain as high as possible. I guess if we stayed up so high, the committee sees something they like in us.”
Prior to Saturday’s game, MSU spent three week’s as the College Football Playoff Committee’s No. 1 team. The Bulldogs also were No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 and Amway Coaches Poll (USA Today). That stretch, which started Oct. 12, ended Sunday when MSU fell three places to No. 4 in both polls.
No. 5 TCU and No. 6 Ohio State were the first two teams out.
Asked what kept MSU in the top four discussion, College Football Playoff Committee Chairman Jeff Long said the voters were impressed by MSU’s resolve in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
“The thing about Mississippi State is, that game with Alabama — while we would say Alabama controlled that game and won — it did end up a five-point game and you never felt like Mississippi State was out of that game,” Long said, “so while Alabama controlled it, Mississippi State was within striking distance in that game.”
Asked if MSU’s wins against then-No. 8 LSU, then-No. 6 Texas A&M, and then-No. 2 Auburn had been diminished after recent losses by those teams, Long dismissed the notion.
“We look at their body of work. We look at the games, how they’ve played them, whether they’ve controlled the game,” Long said. “They’ve diminished a little bit, but they’re still quality wins when you look at LSU and Texas A&M.”
Ole Miss, MSU’s final opponent of the regular season, remains at No. 8, giving the Bulldogs one more opportunity at a top-10 victory. That game is set for Nov. 29 at 2:30 p.m.
The losses LSU (to Arkansas) and Texas A&M (to Missouri) suffered last week knocked both of those teams out of the national rankings.
Alabama jumped from fifth to first by beating MSU. Oregon remained in second place and Florida State in third. FSU fans might not be happy about how their team is being treated, but the Seminoles appear to be safe if they can keep winning right through the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. The same goes with Alabama in the Southeastern Conference and Oregon in the Pacific-12 Conference.
After that, things get complicated. TCU slipped to No. 5 after a closer-than-expected win against Kansas on Saturday. Ohio State moved up two spots to No. 6, ahead of TCU’s Big 12 rival Baylor. Ohio State is in position to play in the Big Ten championship if it wins out.
The Big 12 has no conference championship game. TCU and Baylor would be co-champs if each finishes 11-1, but Baylor beat the Horned Frogs in Waco, Texas last month. The selection protocol calls for the committee to use championships won as a tiebreaker if teams have similar resumes.
Long said “the differences between teams four through seven are narrow, very narrow.”
Whether it’s narrow enough to allow TCU, Ohio State, or Baylor to jump past MSU if one of those teams wins its conference and MSU doesn’t remains to be seen.
“I don’t think there is any way to project that,” said Long, the athletic director at Arkansas. “It will certainly be weighed into the equation on Dec. 6 and 7.”
The committee will release its final rankings on Dec. 7, the day after most of the conference championship games are played.
TCU rallied for a 34-30 victory against Kansas, and Long noted how the Horned Frogs’ inability to control the game against struggling team negatively affected their resume.
Long also said a second-straight road victory for Ohio State, this one against Minnesota after beating Michigan State the week before, helped the Buckeyes move up two spots. Still, an early season home loss to Virginia Tech is a mark against Ohio State.
“While they have certainly added to their resume and shown they are a better team, it doesn’t erase that loss,” Long said.
The committee still doesn’t have a team from outside the Power Five conferences in its rankings, but it will have to pick the best of that group in the final rankings to fill a guaranteed spot in the New Year’s bowls.
Long said the committee discussed undefeated Marshall of Conference USA, Boise State and Colorado State of the Mountain West, Northern Illinois of the Mid-American Conference, and Memphis from the American Athletic Conference.
The Associated Press reports were included in this story.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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