Michigan State’s 12-spot jump is the biggest in Playoff rankings history

The second week of the College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night, and among the changes was a huge jump by Michigan State. The Spartans jumped a whopping 12 spots this week, checking in at No. 12.

MSU turned the Big Ten East race on its head with a 27-24 win over then-No. 7 Penn State. But that alone didn’t cause such a leap.

The Spartans have also beaten Michigan and Iowa. The Hawkeyes are No. 20 after blowing out Ohio State, and the committee mentioned the Wolverines are right outside its top 25. Since the committee evaluates your full list of wins and losses, rather than just treating a win over Iowa as a win over a team that was unranked at the time, that gives MSU one of the country’s best three-win collections.

Yes, Michigan State already has two losses, but they are now both to ranked opponents in No. 3 Notre Dame and on the road in overtime to new No. 25 Northwestern.

So over the past couple weekends, Michigan State’s schedule strength has increased dramatically in the committee’s eyes.

As Bill Connelly has explained, this is a year heavy on parity, where a team making what would’ve been a small jump in most years can end up vaulting them higher than expected.

In 2014, only a couple of teams saw their stocks rise like this, including the UCLA Bruins, who went up seven spots from Week 10 to Week 11, following a 44-30 win over Washington. Minnesota jumped seven spots to No. 18 during Week 13 after the a road win over No. 23 Nebraska.

In 2015, several teams went up six spots in one week. And TCU went up a whole eight in Week 13 after beating No. 7 Baylor, who was in the driver’s seat to win the Big 12, on the road 28-21 in OT.

Last season, we saw two teams jump up eight. LSU fell from No. 13 to No. 24 after losing to Bama, but then jumped back to No. 16 after beating Arkansas. The next week, Florida got basically the same boost by beating LSU.

The Spartans are Big Ten East co-leaders, thanks to both beating Penn State and Ohio State losing to Iowa over the weekend. Sparty gets Ohio State in Columbus this weekend.

But even if Michigan State wins out and wins the Big Ten, Sparty already having two losses means a whole chunk of teams, if they are either undefeated or have just one loss, need to stumble for the Playoff door to be opened. The committee hasn’t been too kind to two-loss conference champions:

If it comes down to it, you’d rather have one loss and no conference title than two losses and a conference title.

The committee ranked 2016 Big Ten champ Penn State behind an Ohio State it’d beaten and a Washington with a weak schedule. Don’t lose two games.

Losing to a bad team is preferable to losing twice.

Remember when 2014 Ohio State lost to a mediocre Virginia Tech? In the first year of the Playoff, some media members thought that would be eliminating. VT finished a little better than some feared, at 6-6, which meant the loss wasn’t that bad. Ohio State won it all. (I promise Ohio State isn’t the go-to example for every stipulation.)

And turns out that was nothing. 2015 Playoff teams Michigan State and Oklahoma lost to 5-7 teams along the way.

A two-loss champ will make it some day, but it’s still not advised.

2015 Stanford, 2016 Oklahoma, and 2016 Penn State won power conferences, lost two games, and could’ve made it in, but didn’t get the help they would’ve needed. That OU team also ranked behind a two-loss, non-champ Michigan, so throw a team like those Wolverines — dominant wins, quality opponents, and close losses on the road — in here as well.

MSU doesn’t have quite the same opportunity as fellow two-loss Auburn has, but counting out the Spartans hasn’t tended to go all that well over the last few years.