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There were plenty of questions heading into the second reveal of the College Football Playoff poll.
What would the B1G look like? Would Alabama and Georgia flip? Would Oklahoma move into the top four?
All of those, plus others, were among the topics to watch out for heading into Tuesday night. Fortunately for us, we got answers to those questions.
Here were my takeaways from the overdramatic second reveal of the Playoff poll:
1. Style points didn’t help Wisconsin…imagine that
Nobody expected the Badgers to move into the top four of the Playoff poll. No. 8 made sense after Miami (FL) beat a top-25 team. Beating up on an Indiana team that’s without a conference win didn’t impress the selection committee. We knew that it wouldn’t. That game was only going to hurt the Badgers a whole lot more than it was going to help them.
Wisconsin’s Playoff fate won’t be determined by how much it beats the Hoosiers by. As we know, it matters who the Badgers beat, and not necessarily by how much. There’s nothing to be gained by Wisconsin whipping Minnesota by 50. More important is being top-25 teams, which the Badgers will still have several opportunities to do in the final month of the season.
We’ll get into that undefeated Playoff résumé in a bit.
2. Top 4 stays the same
As I predicted, the top four stood pat. There was no reason to make any drastic changes. Oklahoma didn’t need to be inserted in the top four before it played TCU. If the Sooners are able to beat another top-25 team, then they could force the selection committee to make an actual decision about them and Clemson.
Actually, the selection committee will have a decision to make either way after TCU-Oklahoma. Could TCU move past Clemson into the top four with a win at Oklahoma? Perhaps. But that distinction didn’t have to be made on Tuesday. With three different matchups among top-10 teams this weekend, the selection committee didn’t need to make any big determinations yet.
Tuesday marked the fifth time in the CFP era that the top four remained the same. Want a prediction? We’ll have a different top 4 next week.
3. Six B1G teams in the top 25 matters for Wisconsin
Lost in the shuffle of the Playoff reveal was the fact that a whopping six B1G teams cracked the Playoff poll on Tuesday.
- No. 8 Wisconsin
- No. 12 Michigan State
- No. 13 Ohio State
- No. 14 Penn State
- No. 20 Iowa
- No. 25 Northwestern
Sneaking into the mix was Iowa (No. 20) and Northwestern (No. 25). In case you forgot, those are two B1G West teams. In case you forgot, Wisconsin beat Northwestern already and it has a chance to beat Iowa on Saturday.
For all the people criticizing Badgers’ résumé, here’s something to consider. IF Wisconsin takes care of Iowa (who dismantled Ohio State on Saturday) and proceeds to beat Michigan and a B1G East champ (which is going to be ranked in the top 10), take a closer look at that résumé. Including Northwestern, that would be four wins against current top-25 teams.
In conclusion, an undefeated Wisconsin team is NOT getting left out of the Playoff.
Take that weak take elsewhere.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.