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PROVO — With one week left before the final bowl bids are handed out, BYU moved up marginally in the College Football Playoff selection committee's eyes.
BYU inched up to No. 17 in the penultimate week of the CFP rankings, one week before conference championship weekend will solidify the selection committee's final postseason berths in the annual four-team playoff and high-profile New Year's Six bowl games.
Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State retained the top four spots, followed by Texas A&M and Iowa State. Florida dropped one spot to No. 7 following a loss to LSU, followed by Georgia, Cincinnati and Oklahoma to round out the top 10.
After a 31-14 season-opening loss to now-19th ranked Louisiana, the Iowa State Cyclones (8-2) are just two spots away from the playoff. That means if two of the top four lose in the ACC, SEC or Big Ten championship games — and at least one will, with Notre Dame and Clemson playing each other — Iowa State and the Big 12 have a chance at college football's ultimate prize.
"One of the things that happened along the way, they beat a highly ranked Oklahoma team and 20th-ranked Texas. They're leading the Big 12, and the committee kept watching that defense and offense improve," committee chair Gary Barta, who is also the athletic director at Iowa, said of Iowa State. "The appreciation for Iowa State is related to that. As it relates to Louisiana, a terrific team, they did beat Iowa State and they do get credit for that …. But what Iowa State has done since that loss says more about that than it does Louisiana's play."
With an Associated Press Top 25 ranking that soared as high as No. 8 nationally, BYU only reached the height of No. 13 in the selection committee's top 25 that helps decide CFP seeding and New Year's Six bowl berths. The Cougars then fell down to No. 18 last week following a 22-17 road loss to Coastal Carolina, which moved up one spot to No. 12 on Tuesday.
The Cougars wrapped up a 10-1 regular season Saturday with a 28-14 win over San Diego State on a frigid senior night in Provo. BYU accepted an invitation to the Boca Raton Bowl against UCF (6-3) on Monday.
Mountain West title contender San Jose State (6-0) entered the rankings for the first time, becoming the first Mountain West team to be ranked by the committee. Colorado, which lost its first game of the year to Utah on Saturday, held stayed in the rankings at No. 25.
USC is the top-rated team from the Pac-12 at No. 13.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati — which is scheduled to play No. 23 Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference title game Saturday — stands to reach a New Year's Six bowl. But the Bearcats (8-0) have apparently reached their ceiling, even falling a spot in Tuesday's release.
"This week was certainly unique in that 12 of the 25 teams ranked did not play, and in the top six, five of those teams didn't play," Barta told ESPN. "There wasn't a lot of discussion of moving anybody in that 1-5.
"The committee has shown appreciation for Cincinnati from the beginning. We haven't had a chance to watch them play since Nov. 21, and the teams around them have played several games. The thing that holds them back is they don't have a win against the top 25."
