Under the Bowl Championship Series and its two-team championship, a late-season game like Saturday night’s between Michigan State and Ohio State — ranked No. 8 and No. 14 at the time in the Associated Press poll — would have had few playoff implications.
But because the new College Football Playoff admits four semifinalists, the Buckeyes, who defeated the host Spartans, 49-37, cannot be counted out. The committee rewarded them Tuesday with a boost in the rankings to No. 8 from No. 14. Michigan State dropped to 12th, from eighth.
The 12-person selection committee, in its third set of rankings, kept undefeated Mississippi State in the top spot, but the most surprising news was that Florida State, also undefeated, dropped to No. 3 from No. 2. One-loss Oregon took over the second spot, and one-loss Texas Christian rounded out the top four.
Jeff Long, the chairman of the committee, said that what had made the difference between Oregon and Florida State was that the Ducks had three victories against top-25 opponents, while the Seminoles had only two. He noted that two of Oregon’s victories, against U.C.L.A. and Utah, were on the road.
College Football Playoff Rankings
“We looked at them very, very close,” Long said on ESPN. “It’s razor-thin. But, based on this week’s body of work, and all things considered, we felt that Oregon had a very slight edge over Florida State.”
Auburn, which had been ranked third, dropped to No. 9 after falling at home to then-unranked Texas A&M. The Aggies are now ranked 24th.
Rounding out the top 10 were No. 5 Alabama, No. 6 Arizona State, No. 7 Baylor and No. 10 Mississippi.
The final rankings will be released Dec. 7, after several conference championship games. Those rankings will determine the teams in the six playoff-affiliated bowls, including the two semifinals, which will be held at the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. The championship game will be held Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex.
Besides Auburn and Michigan State, this week’s biggest losers were Notre Dame, which fell to Arizona State, 55-31, on Saturday and dropped to No. 18 from No. 10, and Kansas State, which lost to T.C.U., 41-20, and dropped to No. 13 from No. 7.
Controversy lies ahead for the Big 12. Baylor secured a big victory Saturday, defeating Oklahoma, 48-14, on the road, but on Oct. 11, it narrowly defeated T.C.U. at home, 61-58, storming back from a 21-point fourth-quarter deficit.
The committee is instructed to consider strength of schedule and head-to-head results, and so far it seems to esteem the Horned Frogs’ superior résumé.
Long said T.C.U.’s two wins against top-25 teams and its overall schedule had trumped Baylor’s one top-25 victory.
“Head-to-head comes into play when all other things are equal,” Long said, referring to T.C.U. and Baylor. But, he added, “their body of work, their strength of schedule is not the same.”
Asked whether the committee was sending a message to teams that they should schedule games against tougher opponents, Long said: “We don’t think it is our job to send messages. We believe the rankings will do that.”
For its final rankings, the committee will consider the results of conference championship games, but the Big 12 is the only major conference without one. The committee will determine that conference’s champion for ranking purposes, said Bill Hancock, the committee’s nonvoting executive director.
In the Big Ten, Ohio State and Nebraska have only one loss each. The Buckeyes fell to unranked Virginia Tech, 35-21, and Nebraska lost to Michigan State, 27-22. The Cornhuskers play at Wisconsin, which is ranked 20th, on Saturday.
The biggest game Saturday, however, will be the Southeastern Conference showdown between Mississippi State and Alabama in Tuscaloosa. If the Bulldogs lose, they could fall out of the top four, leaving a window open for a team from the Big Ten.