Florida State drops while TCU and Oregon move up in CFP rankings

Florida State is finally at the mercy of its schedule.

A year ago, the Seminoles knew that winning out, regardless of its competition, would be enough to make the BCS National Championship game. But on Tuesday, it learned that a room full of committee members ranking its body of work against the work of several other teams with tougher schedules isn’t nearly as forgiving.

The undefeated Seminoles dropped to No. 3 in the College Football Playoff Rankings after spending two previous weeks seemingly comfortable at No. 2. Oregon took their place while Mississippi State hung tough at No. 1 with a game against No. 5 Alabama this weekend. TCU, which was on the outside looking in this time last week, slips into the No. 4 spot after a dominating win against Kansas State.

But, as noted every week, these rankings are subject to change.

What might provide Florida State and Alabama some comfort is that College Football Playoff committee chairman Jeff Long said the differences between the Ducks and the Seminoles, and the Horned Frogs and the Tide are very minimal. With regards to Florida State and Oregon, Long noted that the Ducks had one more win against Top 25 competition and that two of three wins against ranked competition came on the road.

“I think the key for us, and again it’s very, very close, it’s very thin, we probably spent more time discussing those two teams plus TCU and Alabama,” Long said. “It’s razor thin, but in this week, based on this week’s body of work, all things considered, we felt like Oregon had a very slight edge on Florida State.”

That’s likely because Oregon beat a highly-respected Utah team while Florida State easily handled Virginia.

Now here’s the catch: Neither Oregon nor Florida State have any ranked opponents on their schedules until their respective conference title games. And when it comes to that, Oregon likely will be playing a higher-ranked opponent. In the grand scheme though, the difference between Nos. 2 and 3 is pretty minimal. But it's the teams around it — teams that do have ranked opponents remaining — that have to have the Seminoles and Ducks sweating a little bit.

The real change might come after this weekend’s game between Alabama and Mississippi State. As noted last week, Alabama controls its destiny and could end up being the No. 1 seed when all is said and done. The Tide not only have a game against the No. 1 team this weekend, but it still play a ranked Auburn team at the end of the year. Similarly, Mississippi State also has to play a ranked Ole Miss team at the end of the season. Alabama can’t afford to slip because it already has a loss, but it will be interesting to see what the committee does with a one-loss Mississippi State team. Let’s be honest, the Bulldogs looked impressive against its ranked competition this season, but those wins don’t look nearly as impressive as the losses have mounted for those squads. Also, the Bulldogs haven’t looked great in its past two SEC games against Arkansas and Kentucky, two of the weakest teams in the conference.

As for the conundrum of TCU and Baylor and all of the talk regarding the Bears head-to-head win against the Horned Frogs, well, Long put it pretty bluntly, the committee doesn’t care. He noted that while head-to-head is a factor, it’s only used if all other things are equal. And according to Long: “The body of work and the strength of schedule is not the same.”

This is definitely a case where Baylor’s super weak nonconference schedule is coming back to bite it. Of the teams in the Top 6, only Mississippi State didn’t play a Power Five team during its nonconference slate. However, the Bulldogs are also undefeated with three Top 25 wins. Baylor has just one Top 25 win with Oklahoma slipping out of the rankings this week.

The picture is definitely getting clearer for the Top 4 and will continue to do so here in the final few weeks of the season. But how it will look in the end is anyone’s guess.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter! Follow @YahooDrSaturday

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