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Despite surviving a scare at Auburn, Alabama moved up a spot in this week's rankings. Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images
Notre Dame dropped a spot to No. 10, just two spots ahead of Miami at No. 12, and Texas moved up three spots to No. 13 Tuesday night in the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings.
Heading into conference championship weekend, Ohio State and Indiana remain Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. The Buckeyes and Hoosiers meet in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday.
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With only nine title games left to be played this weekend, there is not much opportunity for the rankings to change drastically before Sunday, when the field of 12 will be set by the selection committee. So the second-to-last rankings are a good guide to what the official bracket will look like in a few days.
Georgia (11-1) moved up to No. 3, followed by Texas Tech, Oregon and Ole Miss. The Rebels moved up a spot to No. 6 after winning their season finale against Mississippi State but losing their head coach. Lane Kiffin took the LSU job and will not coach the Rebels in the Playoff.
Texas’ victory over Texas A&M last Friday sent the Aggies out of the top three for the first time this season, to No. 7. The Longhorns (9-3) are the highest ranked team with three losses and are trying to make a case that they are being unfairly punished for playing at Ohio State to start the season. Texas lost 14-7 in Week 1, and then a few weeks later was beaten at Florida (4-8). The Longhorns were also soundly beaten at Georgia in November, but they do have victories against No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 14 Vanderbilt to go along with Texas A&M.
Alabama moved up a spot to ninth, and Notre Dame slipped to 10th.
The cut line to make the field as an at-large will be No. 10 because two of the five highest-ranked conference champions that are reserved a spot in the CFP at this point are all but guaranteed to be ranked outside the top 12.
That puts No. 11 BYU and No. 12 Miami on the outside looking in going into the final weekend. BYU still has a path to reach the Playoff by winning its conference. The Cougars play Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game on Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
Miami can only get in via an at-large bid after the ACC Championship Game tiebreakers didn’t fall in its favor.
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Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal has continued to push for his team’s season-opening victory against Notre Dame to be the deciding factor between the two teams. Notre Dame, which plays football as an independent, has also completed its regular season, closing with a 10-game winning streak after losing to Miami and Texas A&M by a combined four points.
Miami lost to Louisville and SMU by a combined nine points within a three-week span leading into the first CFP rankings. That put the Hurricanes way behind Notre Dame to start, 18th to the Irish’s ninth. Miami closed with a four-game winning streak, capping it by beating Pitt 38-7 on Saturday.
“The best part of football is you get to settle it on the field, where head-to-head is always the No. 1 criteria,” Cristobal told ESPN after the Pitt game.
But it hasn’t so far. With neither team playing again, it’s unclear how it would Sunday, though maybe the situation would change if BYU loses Saturday and Miami and Notre Dame were suddenly back-to-back in the rankings.
This story will be updated.
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Ralph Russo is a Senior Writer for The Athletic, covering college football. Before joining The Athletic, he spent 20 years as the lead national college football writer for The Associated Press. He also previously worked as the AP’s Mississippi-based sports writer and did a stint with The Denver Post. Ralph is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Fordham University.