College Football

What college football’s Week 5 final scores will mean on Selection Sunday

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

Updated Sep 30, 2018, 5:55 AM UTC

Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

Now we’re getting somewhere. Week 5’s college football schedule had at least a couple games that should define part of the Playoff race, with fallout aplenty.

Below, we’re keeping track of each top-25 game’s impact, both before and after final scores, mostly paying attention to CFB committee stuff, not highlights or fun plays.

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, for now.

Probably important

Games in which the winning team will likely have a pretty high-quality Week 5 victory by season’s end.

No. 4 Ohio State (5-0) 27, No. 9 Penn State (4-1) 26: The Buckeyes stole one on the road, and it should stand up as one of the year’s best wins. They’ll be in every Playoff projection until they lose.
No. 8 Notre Dame (5-0) 38, No. 7 Stanford (4-1) 17: The Pac-12’s low on serious contenders, as usual, and could’ve really used a Stanford W. This was likely Notre Dame’s hardest remaining game, meaning we’re in the Arguing About Whether Teams Not Named Bama Should Be Able To Make The Playoff If They Don’t Win A Conference zone.
No. 12 West Virginia (4-0) 42, No. 25 Texas Tech (3-2) 34: The Big 12 suddenly feels quite wide open, and WVU should be considered a real contender. This would stand up as a really nice road win, if the TTU that beat Oklahoma State is something like the real TTU.
Florida (4-1) 13, No. 23 Mississippi State (3-2) 6: Road W. I could see both these teams finishing ranked, believe it or not.

Maybe important

Games in which the winner will probably have beaten a decent bowl team.

No. 3 Clemson (5-0) 27, Syracuse (4-1) 23: When rankings come out, the committee will likely give Clemson all sorts of credit for gutting out a win despite being down to the guy who, days prior, was the third-string QB.
No. 5 LSU (5-0) 45, Ole Miss (3-2) 16: The Rebels can’t bowl, but the committee will likely still be able to call this a blowout win over a .500-ish team.
No. 6 Oklahoma (5-0) 66, Baylor (3-2) 33
No. 10 Auburn (4-1) 24, Southern Miss (2-2) 13: Not the most beautiful score, but the game was weather-delayed for a long time. The committee sometimes cares about stuff like that.
No. 11 Washington (4-1) 35, No. 20 BYU (3-2) 7: Wrote this before the game here, and just leaving it as-is: “BYU’s looked greatly improved so far, but I don’t think I see them finishing ranked. Hence the ‘maybe.’”
No. 13 UCF (4-0) 45, Pitt (2-3) 14: UCF’s big chance for a Power 5 pelt this regular season was ... at home against poor ole Pitt.
No. 14 Michigan (4-1) 20, Northwestern (1-3) 17: In previous years, the committee’s pretty consistently overrated Northwestern. If the CFP still thinks really highly of the Wildcats, then this is a great road W.
No. 17 Kentucky (5-0) 24, South Carolina (2-2) 10: Just wanted to mention again that Kentucky’s ranked for the first time since 2007.
No. 19 Oregon (4-1) 42, No. 24 Cal (3-1) 24
Virginia Tech (3-1) 31, No. 22 Duke (4-1) 14: The ACC is such a damn mess!

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.