The College Football Playoff bubble might look a bit different when the new rankings are released Tuesday.
Will Utah, ranked No. 12 last week, hold its spot despite struggling in a 51-47 win over Kansas State at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday?
The Wildcats gashed the Utah defense for 472 rushing yards, the most in school history and the most against a Kyle Whittingham team in his 21 years as a head coach. Sophomore Joe Jackson, who had one 100-yard rushing game in his career, led Kansas State with 293 rushing yards — breaking Darren Sproles’ single-game school record — and three touchdowns.
But Utah won the game, rallying from 10 down in the final three minutes to remain in the hunt for a spot in the CFP — though the Utes’ odds dropped from 30 percent entering Week 13 to 28 percent after the win, according to Austin Mock’s model.
Kansas State became the first team to rush for 472-plus yards and lose since North Texas beat Army 52-49 in 2017.
“Before the game, we knew what was at stake,” said Utah quarterback Devon Dampier, who threw two touchdown passes and ran for two, including the game-winning score on a 1-yard run with just under 1 minute to play. “We have to win out to make it to the Playoff. I’m just so happy with how our team performed.”
Now the question becomes, will Utah remain ahead of No. 13 Miami and No. 14 Vanderbilt on Tuesday?
The Hurricanes won 34-17 at Virginia Tech, while the Commodores blew out Kentucky 45-17 in Nashville. Mock’s model has Vanderbilt with a 26 percent chance to make the field and Miami at just 8 percent.
Miami has a head-to-head win over ninth-ranked Notre Dame but hasn’t been able to get close enough to the Irish in the rankings to have that victory taken into consideration. Notre Dame dominated Syracuse 70-7 on Saturday.
The Utes entered Saturday’s game as 17.5-point favorites against Kansas State. They were ranked ahead of Miami due largely to the fact that both of their losses came against ranked opponents, No. 5 Texas Tech and No. 11 BYU.
Both of Miami’s losses came to unranked ACC teams, though SMU might sneak into next week’s poll.