After a light Week 2, this weekend should give us some actual movement in the New Year’s race. We had about twice as many games with good chances of factoring significantly into Selection Sunday, and that’s before we add upsets. There were upsets!
What college football’s Week 3 top-25 final scores mean
Keeping track of all the ranked games, Playoff committee-style.
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Below, we kept track of each top-25 game’s impact, both before and after final scores.
Remember the things the committee has mostly demonstrated it rewards: wins over final top-25 teams, wins over bowl teams, road wins, dominant wins, weirdly excusable losses, being Alabama, and not being a mid-major. It does not care what your opponent’s AP ranking was at kickoff.
All rankings AP, until the committee’s start releasing. Final scores in italics.
Probably important
Games in which the winning team will likely have a pretty high-quality Week 3 victory by season’s end.
- No. 1 Alabama (3-0) 62, Ole Miss (2-1) 7: A horrific road win over a team likely to finish with a winning record. Shutting down an offense like Ole Miss’ feels like the kind of anecdote the committee’s chair would cite on ESPN while praising Bama.
- No. 4 Ohio State (3-0) 40, No. 15 TCU (2-1) 28: Nobody should get true road-game credit here, since Jerry World is close to TCU’s campus but likely to be a Buckeye-heavy crowd. OSU adds one of the year’s best non-con wins, as TCU looks like it can compete with anybody it plays.
- BYU (2-1) 24, No. 6 Wisconsin (2-1) 21: I guess BYU’s terrible 2017 was a fluke, huh? Also, not a great Saturday for the Big Ten, with OOC losses by Maryland, Nebraska, and Rutgers.
- No. 12 LSU (3-0) 22, No. 7 Auburn (2-1) 21: As always, either of these teams could go anywhere between 11-1 and 7-5, but a solid resume item is pretty assured for LSU.
- No. 10 Washington (2-1) 21, Utah (2-1) 7: This game was baffling, but it’s in the books as a two-score road win over a team that could very well win a weak Pac-12 South.
- No. 24 Oklahoma State (3-0) 44, No. 17 Boise State (2-1) 21: Really impressive W (Boise was actually favored at kickoff), and the New Year’s Six race gets all of its drama back.
Maybe important
Games in which the winner will probably have beaten a decent bowl team (or better), and I’m being slightly generous in Week 3.
- No. 2 Clemson (3-0) 38, Georgia Southern (2-1) 7: The Eagles appear pretty likely to bowl.
- No. 3 Georgia (3-0) 49, Middle Tennessee (1-2) 7: MTSU has a shot at .500.
- No. 5 Oklahoma (3-0) 37, Iowa State (0-2) 27: ISU’s pretty likely to rebound and make a bowl. Decent road win.
- No. 8 Notre Dame (3-0) 22, Vanderbilt (2-1) 17: I think Vandy’s actually pretty good!
- No. 16 Mississippi State (3-0) 56, UL Lafayette (1-1) 10: Sure, let’s say the Ragin’ Cajuns are a bowl team for now. S&P+ likes them.
- No. 21 Miami (2-1) 49, Toledo (1-1) 24: Pretty impressive road win for the Canes, quite far from home (about as far as Delaware to New Mexico) and against a good team.
- Texas (2-1) 37, No. 22 USC (1-2) 14: Well, it was a ranked game.
- San Diego State (2-1) 28, No. 23 Arizona State (2-1) 21: Hey, let’s call it a win over the potential Pac-12 South champs. Why not? I think everyone on earth is a potential Pac-12 South champ right now.
Not important
The committee doesn’t really care about wins vs. FCS teams, teams with final losing records, and so forth.
- No. 9 Stanford (3-0) 30, FCS UC Davis 10
- No. 11 Penn State (3-0) 63, Kent State (1-2) 10
- No. 13 Virginia Tech’s game against East Carolina was canceled due to weather, which isn’t a big loss for the Hokies’ schedule.
- No. 14 West Virginia’s game against NC State was also canceled. Would’ve been a really nice win for the victor, not that football matters much here.
- No. 18 UCF’s game against UNC was also nixed. A win wouldn’t have moved the needle for the Knights anyway, as wild as that is to say about a prominent ACC program.
- No. 19 Michigan (2-1) 45, SMU (0-3) 20
- No. 20 Oregon (3-0) 35, San Jose State (0-3) 22
- No. 25 Michigan State (1-1): Idly recovering from Herm Edwards.
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