Iowa moves up to No. 4 in latest College Football Playoff rankings

Iowa no longer sits on the outside looking in when it comes to the College Football Playoff.

The Hawkeyes (11-0) moved up one spot to No. 4 in the four-team postseason field. Iowa was ranked No. 5 the last two weeks and are the highest-ranked Big Ten squad entering its regular-season finale on Friday at Nebraska.

Clemson (11-1) and Alabama (10-1) remained No. 1 and No. 2 for the third straight week. The rankings had a shake-up from No. 3 on down, however.

Ohio State (10-1) slipped from No. 3 to No. 8 after its three-point loss to Michigan State (10-1) last Saturday. The Spartans moved up from ninth to fifth with the win. Notre Dame (10-1) fell from fourth to sixth after beating Boston College at Fenway Park. Oklahoma (10-1) vaulted from No. 7 to No. 3 after holding off TCU (9-2) 30-29.

'In the numbers between three and six, we had a number of revotes where we really dug into those games and those teams and revoted on a number of times,' College Football Playoff Chairman Jeff Long said on ESPN. 'As you know, it takes at least four members to cause a revote. So it was a very, very highly discussed area.'

Five Big Ten teams are ranked, including four in the top 10. Michigan (9-2), 12th last week, now is ranked No. 10. The Wolverines play Ohio State this week. Northwestern (9-2) beat Wisconsin on the road and moved up from No. 20 to 16. Wisconsin (8-3) fell out of the rankings after landing at No. 25 the last two weeks.

The SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12 all have four ranked teams. The ACC has three. Clemson and Iowa are the only unbeaten FBS teams. Oklahoma lost 24-17 to Texas, which is 4-6.

ESPN analyst Danny Kanell countered a discussion by ESPN analysts that every team has had a rough performance this year, saying, 'Iowa doesn't have that game.'

'They've won every game on their schedule,' Kanell said. 'It's not worth (arguing) because they'll play Michigan State, and it will play out. But the bottom line is with Notre Dame being at six and both Iowa and Michigan State being ahead of them playing for the Big Ten championship, it looks really tough for Notre Dame to get in that last four.'

Long, in a teleconference later, said 'in our view, Oklahoma is better than Iowa.

'We thought Iowa and Michigan State were extremely close,' Long said. 'We compared them very closely, and as you pointed out, they do have some differences there.

'But I think in the end, they were so close that the fact that Iowa is undefeated and they have not had a misstep along the way at this point gave them the edge against Michigan State.'

Iowa, the Big Ten West champion, will play the East Division champ — Michigan State holds the tiebreaker — on Dec. 5 in Indianapolis.

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