Top 5 unchanged; big matchups loom

The top five remained unchanged in the College Football Playoff selection committee rankings released Tuesday night, as the sport prepares for a major weekend that includes three matchups made entirely of top 10 teams.

The 13-member committee, which meets each Monday and Tuesday in north Texas for the remainder of the season, made no alterations among No. 1 Georgia (9-0), No. 2 Alabama (9-0), No. 3 Notre Dame (8-1), No. 4 Clemson (8-1) and No. 5 Oklahoma (8-1). All five won last weekend, and three of them — Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma — defeated ranked teams.

From there, TCU (8-1) rose two spots to take over No. 6, after previous No. 6 Ohio State (7-2) lost to Iowa and fell to No. 13.

Miami (8-0), No. 10 last week when the committee issued its first list of the season, leapfrogged its fellow unbeaten Wisconsin (9-0), to take over No. 7 while Wisconsin held down No. 8. The Hurricanes jumped over Wisconsin after beating Virginia Tech handily Saturday. The Badgers pulled away late in a rout of Indiana.

Selection committee Chairman Kirby Hocutt, Texas Tech’s athletic director, said the committee was impressed by the Hurricanes’ most convincing victory of the season against a “solid” Virginia Tech team.

Washington (8-1) gave the Pac-12 its first top 10 team of the season by rising from No. 12 to No. 9, and Auburn (7-2) became the lone two-loss team in the top 10, jumping from No. 14 to No. 10.

Those rankings meant that on Saturday, No. 1 Georgia will play at No. 10 Auburn; No. 3 Notre Dame will play at No. 7 Miami; and No. 6 TCU will play at No. 5 Oklahoma. No. 2 Alabama will play Mississippi State (7-2), which held down No. 16 for a second consecutive week, and No. 8 Wisconsin will welcome Iowa, which debuted at No. 20.

Michigan State (7-2) rode its upset of Penn State from No. 24 all the way to No. 12 this week, just behind No. 11 Southern California (8-2). That placed Michigan State one slot ahead of the team it will play this week (at Ohio State), and two ahead of the team it just defeated, Penn State, which fell from No. 7 to No. 14.

Although the Big Ten had a rough weekend with the Ohio State and Penn State defeats, it had the only two teams to debut in the rankings, as Iowa reached No. 20 and Northwestern (6-3) came in at No. 25.

Central Florida (8-0), the fifth and final unbeaten team in the Football Bowl Subdivision, again took the top spot among teams from the second-tier Group of Five, who vie for a New Year’s Day bowl bid. UCF sat at No. 18, its same ranking from last week, and four spots ahead of Memphis (8-1), whose lone loss came to UCF.

This is the second of six rankings released by the 13-member selection committee. The final poll will be revealed live on ESPN on Dec. 3.

The top four teams qualify for the two semifinal games, which will be held at the Rose and Sugar bowls on New Year’s Day. The winners will meet in the national championship game Jan. 8 at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The remaining games comprise the New Year’s Six access bowl games — Orange, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta — which will select the highest-ranked remaining teams that fill their criteria. The highest-ranked conference champion from the Group of 5 conferences (American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt) also will receive a spot.