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Texas jumps Georgia for No. 1 spot in ESPN’s latest College Football Playoff projection
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Perhaps it’s the lingering effects of Texas’ blowout victory at defending national champion Michigan.
Or the recency bias from Georgia’s very ugly 13-12 win at Kentucky.
Or some combination of both.
Whatever it was, or is, ESPN’s latest College Football Playoff projection has the Longhorns at No. 1 instead of Georgia, which has been the top-ranked team in the AP Poll all season but struggled mightily just to get past the Wildcats on Saturday night in Lexington.
The debate will continue for weeks, but these teams will be able to settle it on the field. Georgia travels to Austin to play the Longhorns on Oct. 19.
ESPN’s projection following Week 3 has Texas at the top for how the Playoff committee would rank — not necessarily seed — the top 12 teams that would potentially make the inaugural 12-team CFP.
As ESPN pointed out on Saturday night, the 12-team Playoff seeding, when everything is decided in early December, will look different from the Playoff rankings.
The top 4 highest-ranked conference champions will receive 1st-round byes, and the top 5 conference champions will receive entry into the 12-team field.
Of course, things could change very quickly in ESPN’s projection. Like in 2 weeks from now, when Georgia travels to Tuscaloosa to face 4th-ranked Alabama in a titanic primetime showdown. Should the Bulldogs pull off the road victory over the Crimson Tide, perhaps they would vault back over Texas in ESPN’s weekly Playoff projection.
Or not.
Everything is so fluid from week to week, and December is still a long way away.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
