The Couch Power 10, Week 13
- Daniel Woodiwiss
- Nov 18
- 7 min read
Happy Thanksgiving week, college football fans! I don't know about you, but I can scarcely believe we're just a couple days away from celebrating the holiday yet again, and taking in our last weekend of regular season college football. Soak it up while we still can!
You may have noticed it's been two weeks since you last heard from me. I'm sorry for that absence, my chickadees, but it was deliberate, and not just a byproduct of a busy couple weeks for me (although that certainly played a part, yes). Ironically, as we barrel down the stretch of what's been a topsy-turvy season, these last couple weekends have been scant on big games, so if you've been unable to tune in and are relying on me for updates, you've mostly missed a cavalcade of ranked teams beating unranked teams, with the exceptions of minor upsets in the ACC and AAC, namely Louisville and South Florida tanking their playoff hopes. A couple Big Ten elimination games saw USC officially knock Iowa out of the running, and then last week get themselves knocked out of the running at the hands of Oregon.
But the biggest developments of all-- the only significant developments, some might argue --happened in the states of Georgia and Alabama. Last weekend was a big one in the SEC; immediately after Texas A&M miraculously kept their perfect season and SEC championship aspirations alive, Alabama jeopardized their own, and their playoff positioning in the process, losing at home to Oklahoma. The massive result may not have knocked the Tide out of their standing in the SEC title game (for now), but it leapfrogged the Sooners ahead of them for playoff positioning. Now sitting even prettier in the SEC and the playoff spots? Georgia, whose lone loss came at home early this season to Alabama. In a rematch of the 2024 SEC Championship, the Bulldogs put together their most complete performance in the last two seasons, once again getting the better of Steve Sarkisian's Texas with a wire-to-wire dominant display on both sides of the ball. And the partying didn't stop there for the Dawgs, either, as one week later they got to watch in-state rivals Georgia Tech blow their chance at an ACC title and playoff bid with a shocking home loss to Pitt. It was a "win and you're in" scenario for the Yellow Jackets, and yet, they are now almost surely on the outside looking in as it pertains to both ACC title game and the playoff as a whole.
Down the stretch we come! As the playoff committee prepares for the penultimate week of their rankings before the playoff announcement, our ‘tier system’ unveiled a month ago here at the Couch Power 10 once again continues to hold strong and true.
Just a refresher, in case you forgot: this is not a definitive ranking on how good the teams are, or on who I think will be/deserves to be in the playoff at the end of the year. Rather, it's more of a "What if preseason rankings and bigwig bias didn't predetermine the top teams" kind of thing, an ideal ranking of the country's teams based on what they've actually proved on the field to date. Don't be mad cuz I'm doin' me better than you doin' you:
Tier I: The undisputed Top 3
1. Ohio State
The bad news is it has been long enough (approximately 3 months, in fact) since Ohio State played a true quality opponent that the grumbling over their schedule has fully set in. The good news is, they've continued to win easily, over UCLA and Rutgers this time, and have a chance to bookend their season with Top 15 wins if they can snap their 5-year slump against rivals Michigan this weekend.
2. Texas A&M
It's not a very good case for Texas A&M's title legitimacy that they trailed an underachieving South Carolina team by 27 points at home at the midway point of their game two weekends ago. It IS a very good case that despite one of the most disastrous halves of football any top team has played all year, they won the 2nd half 31-0 en route to a stunning comeback win, and preserved their perfect season. A&M has solidified their berth in the playoff, the question now is-- with a trip to old rivals Texas awaiting on Black Friday --whether they can also secure a berth in the SEC championship, and with it, a likely first-round bye.
3. Indiana
Ohio State has been the clear # 1 all year, until proven otherwise, but conference mates and likely Big Ten Championship foes Indiana have been, at worst, "2b" for the last while now. Their resumé pales ever so slightly in comparison to A&M's, but that road win at Oregon continues to be one of the most impressive victories anyone can lay claim to this year, and the Hoosiers bounced back from their close shave at Penn State admirably, handling a now-hot Wisconsin side impressively last weekend. Only a stunner against lowly rivals Purdue could derail their perfect season and Big Ten title dreams now.
Tier II: The next best things
4. Georgia
I said in my last piece that I suspected Georgia might be better than Alabama, and at last, results on the field gave me some evidence for that. On the same day Bama's decline in form finally caught up with them, the Dawgs finally delivered the well-rounded, start-to-finish dominant performance their fans had been waiting for all season. Last year's Georgia team felt like a high-ceiling side that just could never figure out when they were going to show up, but this year's has felt like a flawed, but tough outfit who kept figuring out how to pull out games and steadily grow better in all facets of the game. I think just about any coach in America would prefer the latter, and whether Kirby Smart's crew sneak into the SEC Championship or not, they are a team nobody will want to face in the postseason.
5. Ole Miss
Since the back-to-back weeks against Georgia and Oklahoma, Ole Miss's quality of opponents has dipped and their head coach has been the subject of nonstop coaching carousel rumors, so the attention has come off the Rebels' play on the field. But they've continued to put their head down and win football games, and if that 10-1 record wasn't nice enough, that road win at Oklahoma just looks even nicer now. They'll need to stay focused one more week, in a tricky rivalry game with Mississippi State. With the logjam that's present in the Top 10 right now, and the likelihood that both the ACC and the Group of Five champions snag a playoff spot that wouldn't have otherwise gone to them based on rank, the line between "first-round bye" and "missing the playoffs altogether" is amazingly fine.
6. Texas Tech
Texas Tech's lone game since their big win over BYU was Senior Day against middling UCF, which they unsurprisingly dominated. A cross-country road trip to West Virginia is not the easiest season finale, so the Red Raiders will need to stay focused, as a shock loss could suddenly throw their Big 12 (and thus, playoff) standing amok. It'd be a shame if it came to pass, because Tech has clearly been the class of the conference this year, and looks the part of a tough out in the postseason, too.
Tier III: They're good! But I have questions
7. Oregon
In my last piece, I posited that Oregon may be a little overrated. Since then, the Ducks beaten a solid Minnesota team and a good USC team by an average scoreline of 42-20. Fair enough! Given that a berth in the Big Ten title game is unlikely, and thus that loss to Indiana is the only instance in which we've seen these Ducks against a top team, I think questions still abound as to how good they can be. But at this point, there's no question the answer is "at least good enough to be a playoff team."
8. BYU
In both years now of the expanded playoff, BYU has faced an army of skeptics among college football fans and more crucially, in the playoff committee. I suppose we'll see tomorrow whether BYU's tough road win at Cincinnati-- a game most of the talking heads at ESPN pegged them to lose --was enough to move the 10-1 Cougars back into the playoff conversation, or if they'll just have to make the most of their likely rematch with Texas Tech in the Big 12 title. But hey, if nobody else is a believer, I am: these Stormin' Mormons are for real, and don't be surprised if they "steal" a bid from a bubble team next Sunday.
9. Oklahoma
Even though I was hardly surprised by it at the time (I would go so far as to say I expected it), Oklahoma's big loss to Texas midseason looks weirder and weirder. The Longhorns have been revealed to be a mediocre collection of great individual talents, and the Sooners have gone on to be one of the stingiest defenses in America, following up their close loss vs. Ole Miss with incredible consecutive road wins at Tennessee and Alabama, and then last week, sucking the life out of old Big 12 rivals Mizzou. They might be sweating it out on Selection Sunday, but given their current standing, it sure seems like a win over coach-less LSU in the season finale will be enough to put them into the playoff.
10. Notre Dame
There's been a not-insignificant outcry of protest over Notre Dame's inclusion at the Top 10, given their weaker schedule than Alabama and head-to-head loss to Miami. And I get it! As a firm believer in head-to-head as the be-all-end-all when it comes to two teams, if it simply were between Miami and Notre Dame, the Hurricanes should get in. But right now there's a 7-car pileup of solid 2-loss teams, and frankly, none of them look as good as the Irish have over the last couple months. Losing to unbeaten Texas A&M and on the road at Miami by a combined 4 points to start the season is hardly the sign of a bad team, and road blowouts at Boise State and Pitt, as well as comfortable home wins over USC and Navy are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Just missed: Alabama, Miami, Vanderbilt, James Madison, North Texas, Drake Maye
The Playoff Picture according to The Couch:
(5) Ole Miss v (12) James Madison
(6) Texas Tech v (11) Virginia
(7) Oregon v (10) Notre Dame
(8) Oklahoma v (9) BYU
ROSE BOWL: (1) Ohio State v OU/BYU winner
COTTON BOWL: (2) Texas A&M v ORE/ND winner
ORANGE BOWL: (3) Indiana v TT/UVA winner
SUGAR BOWL: (4) Georgia v MISS/JMU winner
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