After the BYU Cougars lost last weekend to the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, the drama that has existed the past few weeks before the reveal of the College Football Playoff rankings was gone Tuesday evening, as the Cougars were knocked out of contention for a New Year’s Six bowl.
As it happened Tuesday, BYU dropped five spots to No. 18 in the rankings, which was actually a smaller fall than the six-spot decline in the Associated Press poll and the eight-spot tumble in the Coaches poll released Sunday.
While the seeming slight of the Cougars in the first few CFP rankings was a major source of dramatic conversation in weeks past on ESPN’s unveiling show, the tone of conversation was naturally much different Tuesday.
In an apology of sorts to the CFP committee, David Pollack noted, “The last several weeks, when we were ranking BYU, we were looking at it and we were going, ‘They should’ve been higher.’”
Rece Davis still observed, however, “Selection and performance are mutually exclusive, so the committee was still underrating BYU in my judgement, and perhaps underrating Coastal Carolina.”
The Chanticleers on Tuesday slotted into that No. 13 slot the Cougars held last week, which was a five-spot jump for the upstart program in Conway, South Carolina.
Elsewhere of note, the Utah Utes’ opponent this weekend in the regular-season finale, the Colorado Buffaloes, debuted at No. 21. The USC Trojans were the only other Pac-12 school in the rankings, as they came in at No. 15.
Coastal Carolina remains in a battle with the Cincinnati Bearcats for the highest ranking among Group of Five teams. The Bearcats dropped a spot to No. 8 and are still dealing with COVID-19 issues in their program, which has led to the cancellation of this weekend’s game against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, which is now ranked No. 24.
The top six of Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson, Ohio State, Texas A&M and Florida remained unchanged from last week.
Iowa State moved up two spots to No. 7, followed by Cincinnati, then Georgia at No. 9. Miami rounds out the top 10.