The Audible with Stew, Bruce & Ralph: A show about college football · The Athletic

Reactions: Penultimate Playoff Rankings Drama

·34 min·2 clips

Alabama and Notre Dame swapped spots, and Ralph Russo predicts the committee will flip Miami behind Notre Dame despite the head-to-head.

1. The Audible with Stew, Bruce & Ralph reacts to the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings, in which Alabama moved to No. 9 and Notre Dame slid to No. 10. 2. Stuart Mandel and Ralph Russo host, with Bruce Feldman absent, and they cite conversations with sources about the CFP format and Penn State's coaching search. 3. The central tension is that Miami sits at No. 12 behind Notre Dame at No. 10 and BYU at No. 11 despite Miami's head-to-head win, and Ralph predicts "this is not going to end with number 10, Notre Dame, number 11, Miami." 4. Ralph compares the situation to TCU-Baylor in 2014 and says the committee will have to decide whether the head-to-head tiebreaker applies once Alabama is no longer between the two teams. 5. Stuart warns that if Alabama loses the SEC title game and is passed by a team that did not play, "that might be the end of the SEC championship game," and he notes the format-change deadline was pushed from December 1 to January 23. 6. The hosts say Texas rose three spots to No. 13 for beating Texas A&M, which fell four spots to No. 7, and that Texas and Miami could both argue they were punished for scheduling Ohio State. 7. They read a reader's question from Brandon Simmons, then discuss whether Alabama beating Georgia could earn a first-round bye, with Texas Tech's result as the deciding factor, and say Oregon, Texas A&M and Ole Miss look like home-game seeds. 8. They discuss the automatic-bid picture: James Madison is ranked 25th, Virginia is 17th at 10-2, and Duke at 8-5 could still take the ACC's spot, with Stuart saying his confidence in Duke is "waning." 9. Stuart argues that conference realignment "ruined this playoff" by making champions less reliable, and the hosts note that the Big Ten's 24-team proposal and an SEC with no automatic bids leave the two sides at a stalemate likely to end at 12 teams. 10. A closing coaching segment covers Kalani Sitake's BYU extension, Penn State candidates such as Matt Campbell, Dan Mullen and Terry Smith, and Cal's likely hire of Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi.

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