The top-five teams remained unchanged in the latest College Football Playoff rankings with undefeated Oregon on top followed by Ohio State, Texas, Penn State and Indiana — four Big Ten teams and an SEC interloper.
But there were significant changes below, with Brigham Young as the prime mover.
The Cougars plunged eight spots, to No. 14, following their first defeat of the season, a four-point loss to unranked Kansas.
Notably, one-loss BYU is now a spot behind one-loss SMU even though the Cougars won the head-to-head meeting in Dallas early in the season.
The development could have enormous consequences for the Big 12 — and for Boise State.
The Broncos moved up one spot, to No. 12, placing them in position to gain an opening round bye at the Big 12’s expense.
The five highest-ranked conference champions receive automatic bids to the 12-team CFP, with the top-four conference winners awarded opening-round byes.
If their relative position holds through the conference championships, the Broncos would finish ahead of the Big 12’s four ranked teams: No. 14 BYU, No. 16 Colorado, No. 21 Arizona State and No. 22 Iowa State.
That would force the Big 12 winner to play a road game in the opening round — an outcome none of the Power Four conferences expected to encounter when the new CFP format was created.
The situation is highly fluid with two weeks of regular season games remaining, plus championship weekend. But the issue to monitor from now through the CFP’s grand reveal on Dec. 8 is whether any of the Big 12 teams ranked below Boise State will overtake the Broncos (assuming they continue to win and finish as 12-1 Mountain West champions).
The reason it might happen: The Big 12 winner will most likely face a ranked team in the conference championship, adding a quality win to its resume.
Meanwhile, Boise State is tracking to face unranked Colorado State in the Mountain West title game. A victory in that matchup might not enhance the Broncos’ resume, leaving them vulnerable to a Big 12 leapfrog.
Not all Big 12 teams are created equally, however. We don’t know if Iowa State (currently 16th) would have the same likelihood of passing Boise State as Colorado (16th), for example.
The other threat to the Big 12 — and it’s a low-level threat at this point — is Army.
The Black Knights are undefeated and ranked 19th. A victory over Notre Dame this weekend, followed by an American conference championship, could position Army to finish the season ranked above the Big 12 champion, especially if Iowa State were to win the conference.
That said, it’s worth noting that Notre Dame is favored by two touchdowns over the Black Knights.
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