While Week 6 saw the biggest upset of the season, Week 7 gave us two results that altered the landscape of college football for the foreseeable future… and one result may have contributed to the fallout of the other result.
These results that would shake up the College Football Playoff rankings… if such rankings were to be released by the College Football Playoff committee this week.
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But since we won’t see those rankings until Election Day, between now and then, I will choose (at least) one team that I am confident will not make the 12-team College Football Playoff field, based on its performance to date.
If you want to know how my process works, check it out here.
So far, we have crossed off Boise State, Florida, Kansas State, Clemson, Auburn, South Carolina Penn State, Vanderbilt and Florida State. Here is this week’s list (new teams added to the list last week are in bold):
1. Ohio State
2. Miami
3. Oregon
4. Ole Miss
5. Texas A&M
6. Oklahoma
7. Indiana
8. Alabama
9. Texas Tech
10. Georgia
11. LSU
12. Tennessee
13. Georgia Tech
14. Missouri
15. Michigan
16. Notre Dame
17. Illinois
18. BYU
19. Virginia
21. Arizona State
22. Iowa State
23. Memphis
24. South Florida
29. Utah
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This week’s selections: Illinois.
The Fighting Illini were already on thin ice. Getting destroyed by Indiana 63-10 three weeks ago likely meant that winning the Big Ten was their only way into the College Football Playoff. A home win against (now ranked) USC two weeks ago kept those dreams alive, but a 34-16 loss to Ohio State at home has, for all intents and purposes, squashed any hopes.
Let’s say Illinois were to run the table and finish 7-2 in conference play, which isn’t far-fetched, considering their remaining games (at Washington, Rutgers, Maryland, at Wisconsin, Northwestern). The Illini will still lose the tiebreakers to Ohio State and Indiana, which keeps them out if both schools win out. If one of them were to have a surprising fall from grace, they’d have to jump nine other schools currently with one loss. And again, this requires winning every game for the rest of the season.
Illinois… your watch has ended.
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Check back next week when I cross off at least one team from this list (new teams added to the list this week are in bold):
1. Ohio State
2. Miami
3. Indiana
4. Texas A&M
5. Ole Miss
6. Alabama
7. Texas Tech
8. Oregon
9. Georgia
10. LSU
11. Tennessee
12. Georgia Tech
13. Notre Dame
14. Oklahoma
15. BYU
16. Missouri
18. Virginia
19. South Florida
20. USC
21. Texas
22. Memphis
23. Utah
24. Cincinnati
25. Nebraska
This story was originally reported by College Football News on Oct 14, 2025, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add College Football News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
