As Clemson leapt from No. 3 to No. 1, the expected turbulence hit the top of the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday evening, the bulk of it blowing in from the state of Alabama. Auburn's 26-14 mastery of Alabama on Saturday at Auburn caused the Tigers to vault from No. 6 to No. 2, while the Crimson Tide plunged from No. 1 to No. 5.
Not only did it mark Alabama's first absence from the coveted top four since Nov. 11, 2014, but it positioned Auburn (10-2) above five teams with fewer losses. Eye test-wise, Auburn's two thumping victories over teams ranked No. 1 at the time - Georgia on Nov. 11 and Alabama - clearly impressed the 13 sets of eyes on the committee, which ranked teams for the fifth and penultimate time this season.
The final rankings, replete with the four teams that will play off Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, will appear at midday Sunday.
Behind Auburn sits No. 3 Oklahoma (11-1) and No. 4 Wisconsin (12-0), both up a notch, then No. 5 Alabama (11-1), No. 6 Georgia (11-1) and No. 7 Miami (10-1), which fell from No. 2 after its jarring 24-14 upset loss at Pitt (5-7).
It marked the first entry into the top four for Wisconsin, which started out at No. 9 on Oct. 28 before inching upward, budging past some losing teams while being overtaken by some winning teams, all while hauling the hard weight of its tepid schedule. In a system that prizes challenging wins, Wisconsin's nine Power Five victims include only one ranked team (No. 21 Northwestern). Those nine are a combined 50-58 as the schedule offered no opportunity against anybody in the Big Ten East Division top three (Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State).
Clemson's Power Five victims are 67-39, with Auburn's at 54-30 and Oklahoma's at 57-51. Four teams with vague (at best) playoff hopes rested just beyond the top seven. Those were No. 8 Ohio State (10-2), No. 9 Penn State (10-2), No. 10 Southern California (10-2) and No. 11 TCU (10-2). All except Penn State get a chance to burnish their CVs this weekend, with Ohio State playing Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship, Southern California playing Stanford in the Pacific-12 championship, and TCU playing Oklahoma for the Big 12 title.
Kirby Hocutt, the chairman of a committee that includes five men from coaching and five from athletic directing, said the margin between No. 5 Alabama and No. 8 Ohio State remains small, raising the possibility of a royal argument between those two fan bases, should chaos butt in.
Stanford (9-3) held down No. 12, just ahead of Washington (10-2), which Stanford defeated Nov. 10. With the Pac-12 widely presumed the only Power Five conference without a viable chance at the four-team playoff, its three teams in spaces Nos. 10, 12 and 13 still outpaced No. 14 Central Florida, the top team from the second-tier Group of Five. The Knights' much-lauded 49-42 win over South Florida pushed UCF to 11-0 but pushed it only a notch up the charts, but it does find the privilege of a ranked opponent for its American Athletic Conference Championship Game, and that will be No. 20 Memphis (10-1), which it throttled, 40-13, on Sept. 30.
Notre Dame (9-3) saw its 38-20 loss at Stanford dock it from No. 8 to No. 15.
Among the top 11, four heavy occasions this weekend will help sort out matters, or not so much. Clemson will play Miami in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game in Charlotte, Auburn will play Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship in Atlanta, plus the bouts of Oklahoma and TCU, and Wisconsin and Ohio State.
With Alabama just outside the top four, Clemson's streak of 17 consecutive rankings within the top four became the nation's longest run. (The committee does not issue postseason rankings.)
Clemson spent the entire 2015 season at No. 1 in all six rankings, and has not departed the top four since. The No. 1 Tigers (Clemson) and the No. 2 Tigers (Auburn) played each other long ago Sept. 9, with the former Tigers hogging 11 sacks and winning, 14-6. Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn stressed Saturday that he meant no disrespect to Clemson, but his Auburn team differs utterly from that Auburn team from early September.
While both sets of Tigers play this weekend, Alabama will rest and hope for unrest from above.
In so doing, the Crimson Tide will know that only one team so far in the four-season-old playoff era, Ohio State in 2016, has reached the playoff without reaching a conference championship game. Alabama did get a wee boost from the bottom of the rankings, when one of its semi-anonymous September victims, Fresno State (9-3), nudged in at No. 25, having reassembled itself mightily after starting off 1-2 with losses at Alabama (by 41-10) and Washington (by 48-16). Fresno State's presence gave Alabama, whose stash of wins is less shiny than those of Clemson, Auburn, Oklahoma and even Ohio State, three wins over ranked teams, counting No. 17 LSU (9-3) and No. 23 Mississippi State (8-4).
At the top, Clemson caused itself to lose a ranked victim because it blasted No. 24 South Carolina 34-10 on Saturday and shooed that rival from the rankings, but it gained one when a previous Clemson victim, North Carolina State (8-4), replaced South Carolina at No. 24. Another Clemson victim, Virginia Tech (9-3), went from No. 25 to No. 22, meaning Clemson has beaten teams ranked Nos. 2, 22 and 24, plus four more wins over Power Five teams with winning records. In an unusual boon, none of its nine Power Five victims has gone worse than 5-6.