Projected college football rankings after Oregon’s Big Ten-y win, Indiana gets epic

The first college football rankings from the College Football Playoff committee dropped last week, giving us more clarity than ever about the true pecking order in the sport. The committee can breathe easier after Indiana and Oregon avoided upsets that would have up ended the top 10.

With so many teams on bye and the likes of No. 16 Vanderbilt surviving a scare against Auburn, there isn’t actually that much movement to expect in the rankings. It’s the subtle shifts that make things interesting though.

Projected college football rankings after Oregon kicks past Iowa, Indiana beats Penn State, Texas Tech tops BYU

Oregon survives Iowa, the weather and a lot of injuries

In the most “Big Ten-y” game of the week, the Oregon Ducks beat Iowa on a last second field goal. The weather at Kinnick was horrendous. The offense was just as bad. A defense slugfest left the already ailing Ducks dealing with even more injuries. OT Alex Harkey, WR Dakorien Moore and TE Kenyon Sadiq missed the game. Gary Bryant Jr. exited with injury. That’s why their win was particularly impressive. Donte Moore made the pinpoint throw to set up the game-winner while a safety and three Atticus Sappington kicks accounted for most of Oregon’s scoring. The Duck defense limited the Hawkeyes to 2.3 yards per carry, a season low.

Right now, Oregon isn’t winning pretty, but they are winning since falling to Indiana. Dan Lanning’s team remains in the hunt for a bid to the Big Ten title game. Even if they don’t get one, they’re well set up to make the College Football Playoff. They just need to survive a short week Friday night outing against Minnesota then hosting USC and traveling to Washington.

Iowa shouldn’t drop out of the top 25 considering they took a top 10 team to the brink. Two of the Hawkeyes’ three losses are now against Big Ten contenders ranked well inside the playoff standings.

Indiana proves their grit vs. Penn State

Penn State was the last team we expected to give Indiana a game considering their freefall this season. But give them a game they did: The Game of the Week…maybe The Game of the Season. Indiana needed a dramatic late touchdown to get by the Nittany Lions, Fernado Mendoza finding Omar Cooper Jr for the win with 35 seconds left.

Indiana hadn’t really been challenged this year. This was only their second single-digit win. They’d won every other game by 10 or more. It might be their most valuable victory of the campaign though. Mendoza and company proved their mettle in the way you can only test by facing a deficit with the clock running down.

Mendoza now looks like the Heisman Trophy favorite and the Hoosiers still look like Ohio State’s biggest threat to a repeat national title. Texas A&M may argue to leap over them, but I’d keep the top 3 as is.

Texas Tech humbles BYU

Texas Tech bounced back from their loss to Arizona State a few weeks back to reestablish themselves as the team to beat in the Big 12. A 29-7 win over BYU definitely proved that. The Red Raiders handed the Cougars their first loss of the season. And it wasn’t close. At any point.

Tech has been untouchable in just about every game beyond that loss to the Sun Devils. The investment in their roster has paid off in spades and it’s probably going to net them a bid to the College Football Playoff. They just need to beat UCF and West Virginia to book a trip to the Big 12 title game.

As for BYU, their loss shouldn’t drop them too far, despite the score. They beat Utah after all, the Utes forming a nice buffer for the Cougars.