The college football rankings are going to undergo a major shock in the next week once the new AP Top 25 released Sunday is compared to the first set of College Football Playoff Rankings released Tuesday. AP voters, who have been submitting ballots since the preseason, are entrenched in their process at this point; however, the CFP Selection Committee’s evaluations do end up influencing the AP Top 25 over the final month of the season.
That’s why one of the biggest rankings-related takeaways from Week 9 is how No. 1 Georgia put together the type of performance that AP voters and the committee alike were seeking from a national championship contender.
Georgia has been the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 all season, but last week’s rankings showed the closest margins of the year between the Bulldogs and No. 2 Michigan. (Here in the CBS Sports 133, it has been the Wolverines on top of the Bulldogs for a few weeks now.) The first-place votes have been spread across four different teams with Ohio State and Florida State joining Michigan with No. 1 spots on ballots, and the 32 voting points difference (1,536 to 1,504) last week represented the first real threat of Georgia getting jumped without taking a loss.
Multiple CFP Rankings projections — including the one from our own Jerry Palm — list Georgia outside of the top four. The committee ignores preseason rankings while placing value on strength of schedule and quality wins. Prior to Saturday’s rivalry game against Florida, UGA was not only lacking wins against ranked teams but even those with winning records. The Gators may not have been ranked in the AP Top 25, but they were right on the edge of the rankings last week (26th overall) and could quickly become one of the best wins on the…
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