While fans of other college football teams may be squirming in their seats on Tuesday night, those who root for the Georgia Bulldogs should be sitting comfortably. Blessed with a 7-1 record and a 5-1 mark in SEC with signature wins over Tennessee and Ole Miss, Georgia will make the 12-team College Football Playoff field ahead of Tuesday night's rankings. ESPN's Football Power Index indicates that.
According to FPI, Georgia has an 85.5 percentage chance to make the playoff entering Week 11. Only Indiana (99.0), Ohio State (98.5), Texas A&M (96.7), and Alabama (92.6) have better odds than Georgia. What is important to see from the first rankings are where Georgia lands. They should be the No. 5 seed in the first projection, but could be a spot a higher, or maybe one or two lower for some reason...
Following Saturday's slate of games, ESPN's Heather Dinich projected this to be her playoff bracket.
- Ohio State Buckeyes (8-0): Projected Big Ten champion
- Indiana Hoosiers (9-0): Projected Big Ten runner-up
- Alabama Crimson Tide (7-1): Projected SEC champion
- Texas A&M Aggies (8-0): Projected SEC runner-up
- Georgia Bulldogs (7-1): Projected SEC at-large
- Ole Miss Rebels (8-1): Projected SEC at-large
- BYU Cougars (8-0): Projected Big 12 champion
- Oregon Ducks (7-1): Projected Big Ten at-large
- Texas Tech Red Raiders (8-1): Projected Big 12 runner-up
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-2): Projected national independent at-large
- Virginia Cavaliers (8-1): Projected ACC champion
- Memphis Tigers (8-1): Projected AAC/Group of Five champion
It should be noted that her first two teams out would be Texas (7-2) and Oklahoma (7-2) in that order.
Ahead of Tuesday night's first College Football Playoff rankings of the year, here is how Dinich sees it.
- Would be in (12): Alabama, BYU, Georgia, Indiana, Memphis, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Oregon, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Virginia
- Last team in (4): Ole Miss, Oregon, Texas Tech, Virginia
- First team out (4): Louisville, Texas, USC, Utah
- Still in the mix (13): Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Iowa, James Madison, Miami, Michigan, Missouri, North Texas, Oklahoma, San Diego State, South Florida, Vanderbilt, Washington
- Out (43): Arkansas, Arizona State, Auburn, Baylor, Boston College, California, Clemson, Colorado, Duke, Florida, Florida State, Illinois, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, LSU, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Northwestern, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Rutgers, SMU, South Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse, TCU, Tennessee, UCF, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Wisconsin
Dinich once again had Alabama as the No. 3 seed, but will the Selection Committee see it that way?
Georgia fans need to see how Selection Committee views Alabama loss
Looking at Georgia's resume 10 weeks in, the Bulldogs will have two top-25 wins over Ole Miss and Tennessee. Ole Miss will be a top-10 team with only one loss to Georgia, while Tennessee is still arguably a top-25 team with three losses to Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma. Georgia's lone defeat was to a top-five team at home in Alabama by three points. The Selection Committee will honor that.
If there are any things for Georgia fans to monitor, here are three: Do they get a top-four seed and a first-round bye? Will the Selection Committee come to the same realization about UGA the AP voters already have? Will it unjustly put an undefeated team like BYU ahead of them? The most likely thing to happen is for Georgia to be No. 5 behind Alabama, Indiana, Ohio State and Texas A&M, in some order.
In a best-case scenario, Georgia comes in at No. 4 with Alabama sitting at either No. 2 or No. 3. In a worst-case scenario, the Selection Committee dogs the Dawgs and has them at No. 7 or 8 behind BYU, Ole Miss, and god forbid, Oregon. Again, it should honor the head-to-head for both Georgia beating Ole Miss and Alabama beating Georgia. The SEC should have four of the top eight teams.
Right now, we are still using the AP Top 25 Poll as our guiding light until later on on Tuesday night.