UK & Ireland College Football Media Top 25 Rankings: Week 13

By Simon Carroll

If the AP or CFP committe can’t get it right, then perhaps we can!

Since the start of the 2022 season, some of the UK & Ireland’s most talented writers, content creators and students of the college game have combined to deliver their own weekly set of college football rankings. The UK & Ireland CFB Media Top 25 is announced every Monday evening, and today we can bring you the standings after Week 13. Buckle up – there’s a surprise or two!

2024 - Week 13

Graphic: Owain Jones (Twitter - @Owain_Jones_)
  1. OREGON DUCKS (11-0, =)
  2. OHIO STATE BUCKEYES (10-1, =)
  3. TEXAS LONGHORNS (10-1, =)
  4. PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS (10-2, ↑1)
  5. NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH (10-1, ↑1)
  6. GEORGIA BULLDOGS (10-2, ↑3)
  7. SMU MUSTANGS (10-1, ↑4)
  8. MIAMI HURRICANES (10-1, =)
  9. TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS (9-2, ↑5)
  10. BOISE STATE BRONCOS (10-1, ↑3)
  11. INDIANA HOOSIERS (10-1, ↓7)
  12. ARIZONA STATE SUN DEVILS (9-2, ↑8)
  13. CLEMSON TIGERS (9-2, ↑5)
  14. ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE (8-3, ↓7)
  15. BYU COUGARS (9-2, ↓5)
  16. IOWA STATE CYCLONES (9-2, ↑3)
  17. SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS (8-3, ↑5)
  18. OLE MISS REBELS (8-3, ↓6)
  19. TEXAS A&M AGGIES (8-3, ↓4)
  20. ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS (9-1, ↓4)
  21. TULANE GREEN WAVE (9-2, =)
  22. UNLV REBELS (9-2, ↑1)
  23. ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI (8-3, NE)
  24. KANSAS STATE WILDCATS (8-3, NE)
  25. COLORADO BUFFALOES (8-3, ↓8)

*NE – New Entrant. Teams dropping out: Memphis, Washington State. Other teams receiving votes: Vanderbilt, Louisville, Memphis, Missouri, Syracuse, Louisiana, Liberty, Washington State

TAKEAWAYS

Gut Check Season: Some Pass, Some Don't

Cast your minds back to this time last year, and perhaps just one or two games had any consequence when it came to the National Championship picture. Well, a 12-team playoff has changed all of that – now, an underwhelming conference champ has a good chance of a route into the postseason bracket, which means there’s a hell of a lot more to play for for more programs down the stretch. Even after this weekend, I count 29 teams still with a shot at a spot in the playoffs (see the image above). Some more tenuous than others, of course, but a chance is a chance. Insert Dumb & Dumber GIF here…

Saturday saw some blue blood programs assert their dominance; the likes of Ohio State and Notre Dame all but booking their spot in the dance. They swatted aside some smaller schools with fairytale dreams in the likes of Indiana and Army – but neither endured a knockout blow just yet. The Hoosiers will be buoyed by othe results on Saturday, whilst the Black Knights will hope for some kind of Mountain West or Big 12 implosion to help their cause.

That wasn’t the case across the country, and the SEC is now seriously flirting with just three playoff participants after an afternoon of cannibalisation. Both Ole Miss and Alabama suffering their third losses of the season means their hopes of glory now hang by a thread – considering expectations in Oxford and Tuscaloosa before the season began, a rather astonishing situation to be in. We can expect the CFP Committee to create a narrative to save Greg Sankey’s bacon stateside, but over here, the phrase ‘it just means more’ doesn’t have the same gravitas. As far as the UK & Ireland are concerned, Kiffin & DeBoer’s squads have one game left to save their season – both coming up against hated in-state rivals. Stay tuned.

The Big 12 Is Bat Sh*t Crazy

If there was one Power-4 conference that was going to cause all kinds of chaos in the first season of the 12-team playoff era, it was always going to be the Big 12. And Brett Yormark’s 16-strong gaggle of misfits have not disappointed, totally confounding preseason expectations in every way imaginable. Three preseason Top 25 teams – Arizona, Utah and Oklahoma State – prop up the division. Meanwhile, the school projected dead last in the conference – Arizona State – proudly sit atop the Big 12 and have their own destiny in their hands.

If all that wasn’t crazy enough, here’s two more little nuggets of information to give you food for thought; Firstly, with just one more game to go, as many as NINE programs in this conference can win the Big 12 title and book themselves a spot in the postseason playoffs. That’s right – if they win this coming weekend, results go their way, and then win the conference title game a week later, West Virginia could receive a first round bye with an 8-5 record. Secondly (and I think this is the much more intriguing scenario), if results go a certain way this week, this conference could have eight teams at the top of the standings all with a 6-3 conference record. Don’t even ask me the tiebreaker scenarios in that hypothetical situation – it’s enough to make my brain hurt.

Ironically, the big winner in all of this mayhem might be Boise State, and they don’t even ply their trade in this conference. Much like the CFP committee, the UK & Ireland Media have jumped the Broncos ahead of all the Big 12 pretenders, leaving them in line for a first round bye in the playoffs. And I tell you something else – if the Mountaineers did somehow take the division at 8-5, they’d be hard pressed to supplant Army/Tulane as the fifth best conference champ. This collection of mavericks make up the most entertaining group in college football right now; but it could be at the serious detriment to the Big 12 if they’re not careful.

Don't Sleep On Penn State

Say what you want about his eleven-year stint at Happy Valley, and how he’s turned the Nittany Lions into something of a flat track bully – James Franklin has a serious set of stones on him. Penn State have become synonymous with the Big Ten glass ceiling in recent years, never quite able to break the stranglehold on the conference that Ohio State and Michigan have fought tooth and nail over. It’s felt like a similar scenario this year too, with another defeat to Ohio State as the Nitts try and make themselves playoff relevant.

Well, perhaps Saturday was a turning point. A tough trip to Minnesota awaited Franklin and his team, a team that had struggled to get past Bowling Green and a subpar USC this year. The Gophers could smell blood in the water, as could many of us out there trying to get one over on Vegas. Everyone had this one as an upset on their acca this weekend, and PJ Fleck’s boys nearly pulled it off too.

But not this time. Facing a 4th & 1 deep in their own territory and leading by just 1 point with less than 4 minutes in the game, Franklin made the gutsy decision to call a fake punt. The ball was snapped to their star tight end Tyler Warren, who moved the chains, and Penn State were able to close out the game. In years past, that would have been punted, or the fake would have been snuffed out, and their opponents would have won with a walkoff field goal. But this might be a different Penn State, one who only lost by one touchdown to the Buckeyes, and were stopped themselves at the goalline in that game. Perhaps they’re ready to mix it with the elite once again.

For a team that has loitered around the Top 5 all year, Penn State have been flying under the radar. Keep one eye out on those Nitts.

Players Of The Week:

Offense: Devin Neal, RB, Kansas

Defense: Anthony Hill, LB, Texas

Mock Draft

SIMON CARROLL

Lead Writer, Head Of Content

PREVIOUSLY THE FOUNDER OF NFL DRAFT UK, SIMON HAS BEEN COVERING COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND THE NFL DRAFT SINCE 2009. BASED IN MANCHESTER, SIMON IS ALSO CO-CREATOR & WEEKLY GUEST OF THE COLLAPSING POCKET PODCAST.

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