#3 Notre Dame had double good news: they beat up on Navy while Syracuse whipped a ranked team (#22 NC State). Notre Dame doesn’t have a powerhouse schedule this year, so they need their earlier victory over Syracuse to seem as impressive as possible. That may be academic if they continue to be undefeated. They are currently ranked #3, and would not drop if they continue winning, so they’ll be in the playoff for sure if they run the table. If the season were over now, three of the playoff teams would be obvious (Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame). The fourth spot would be up for grabs.
The #6 Texas Longhorns took themselves out of that grab-fest with a narrow loss to unranked-but-powerful Oklahoma State.
#9 Florida’s hopes were dashed with a loss to #7 Georgia, which in turn improved its chances.
Farther down the list:
#12 Kentucky did win – on the final play of the game! They were down 14-3 at the end of the third quarter.
#21 South Florida apparently played basketball against Houston, and lost. The final score was 57-36. I guess the American Conference wants to be the Big 12 when it grows up. I think that will vault Houston into the top 25 next week.
There will be a lot of reshuffling at the bottom of the list. In addition to #21 and #22, mentioned above, the following all lost: 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 24 and 25. That presented an opportunity for #23 Utah. They won, and by so doing, they could move up as many as seven places!)
MUCH farther down the list:
Rutgers had the week off. They are 1-7 after finishing the easy part of their schedule. I’m not kidding. Their final four games are against Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Penn State.