College Football

What college football’s Week 4 final scores will mean on Selection Sunday

Keeping track of all the ranked games, Playoff committee-style.

Updated Sep 23, 2018, 11:36 AM UTC

Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports

College football takes a little while to really get rolling, and Week 4 didn’t look likely to be one of the most important weekends (until the upsets started rolling in). But every data point is a data point.

Below, we’re keeping 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.

Probably important

Games in which the winning team will likely have a pretty high-quality Week 4 victory by season’s end.

No. 1 Alabama (4-0) 45, No. 22 Texas A&M (2-2) 23: The Aggies likely won’t finish with an awesome record, but 7-5 against this schedule would hold up nicely, meaning a quality W for Bama.
No. 2 Georgia (4-0) 43, Missouri (3-1) 29: I think Mizzou’s a very likely bowl team, and this is a comfortable-looking road win for UGA, too.
No. 7 Stanford (4-0) 38, No. 20 Oregon (3-1) 31 in OT: After a ridiculous game, Stanford is now Washington’s primary Pac-12 challenger. (However, the Huskies travel to Oregon right after traveling all the way to UCLA and back, 2018’s most Pac-12 scheduling decision.)
Old Dominion (1-3) 49, No. 13 Virginia Tech (2-1) 35: HELLO THERE! A 28-point upset, this very well could go down as the biggest stunner of the entire season. Not good for the ACC!
Texas Tech (3-1) 41, No. 15 Oklahoma State (3-1) 17: Texas Tech looked pretty unlikely to even make a bowl, and then the Red Raiders stormed Stillwater. The Big 12 looks completely all over the place as of right now.
No. 16 UCF (3-0) 56, FAU (2-2) 36: UCF added a nice piece to its New Year’s Six resume, with a mostly comfortable win over a potential Conference USA champ.
No. 18 Wisconsin (3-1) 28, Iowa (3-1) 17: Likely a really good road win for UW.

Maybe important

Games in which the winner will probably have beaten a decent bowl team (or better).

No. 5 Oklahoma (4-0) 28, Army (2-2) 21 in OT: The committee shouldn’t look all that highly on this one, even though the Black Knights are plenty good. Nearly losing as a 31-point favorite is a demerit.
No. 6 LSU (4-0) 38, Louisiana Tech (2-1) 17: Prettying up the offense numbers a little bit was nice for LSU. The Playoff committee says it likes balanced teams.
No. 8 Notre Dame (4-0) 56, Wake Forest (2-2) 27: Reasonably impressive road W.
No. 10 Washington (3-1) 27, Arizona State (2-2) 20: The Huskies avenge last year’s baffling loss and beat the Pac-12 South champ. (ICYMI, this column will be declaring Herm Edwards the Pac-12 South champ until someone else is.)
Kentucky (4-0) 28, No. 14 Mississippi State (3-1) 7: HI, KENTUCKY’S GONNA BE RANKED.
Texas (3-1) 31, No. 17 TCU (2-2) 16: Texas emerges as a Big 12 challenger. Settle down, I said “challenger,” not TEXAS IS BACK.
No. 21 Miami (3-1) 31, FIU (2-2) 17
Purdue (1-3) 30, No. 23 Boston College (3-1) 13: Not a huge deal, but an undefeated team downed. And again: not a great Saturday for the ACC.
No. 24 Michigan State (2-1) 35, Indiana (3-1) 21: Pretty nice road win AND a spit bucket.

Probably not important

The committee doesn’t really care about wins vs. FCS teams, teams with final losing records, and so forth. Some of these underdogs could still bowl, of course.